The Showtime original series, Couples Therapy, is an intimate and complex experience. It feels bizarre to watch, as you become a voyeur into couples’ deeply personal therapy sessions. Facilitated by clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst Orna Guralnik, each season introduces a new group of couples trying to work things out.
There is no subject Guralnik won’t discuss, including polyamory, non-monogamy, blended families, childhood trauma, sex, finances, religion, abuse, and infidelity. She is an incredibly calm and open-minded facilitator, whom many couples bravely and vulnerably open up to, both on the couch in her office and to the rest of the world.
I have been stirred, touched, and moved by these relationships. I have become invested in them as if they were my own, finding myself screaming (or crying) at the TV. Guralnik constantly amazes me in the way that she solves problems and I have learned so much from her about the art of relationships and how they, inevitably, lead us back to ourselves. I have seen myself, my parents, and my friends in these relationships.
Here are eight of my takeaways from watching Couples Therapy, for all of us.
1) Communication problems often stem from avoiding real issues
Often, communication is seen as the root of most issues in relationships. In Guralnik’s conversations, we learn that the actual act of communicating is not the problem at all. Instead, poor communication is created as a defence mechanism against touching real issues. Rather than communicating the deep underlying feelings that are scary to acknowledge (how our partner’s actions made us feel insecure or how we felt abandoned when they didn’t text us back), we end up not communicating anything at all.
Proper communication involves the willingness to reflect on how we affect our partner and how they affect us. To communicate properly with our partner, we first need to have clear communication with ourselves. It is important to understand what’s bothering us and why, before attempting to bring it up with our partner.
This understanding of our history informs many of the lessons Guralnik highlights.
2) Repetition of unhealthy patterns is damaging
It is human nature, deeply rooted in our subconscious, to reenact our pasts with our current partner. Often, we try to resolve unresolved traumas from our childhood by fleshing out the same disagreement repeatedly. These repeated fights and unhealthy patterns slowly erode the relationship. Guralnik reminds us that childhood traumas cannot be solved through our current partners and require their own exploration and uncovering.
3) Hearing the truth is equally as important (and difficult) as speaking it
The first response to hearing something that we do not agree with — something that differs from our opinion or view of a situation — is to become defensive. Couples compete for airtime, more eager to get their point across than to hear what’s being said. Conversations become stories of he said, she said, both sides equally convinced that their version is correct. Instead, Guralnik reminds us that the story exists somewhere on the outside, in reality.
In these tense conversations, Guralnik often encourages couples to pause. She structures the conversations to allow space for each person to speak, uninterrupted. This allows for both people to feel truly heard, having their feelings validated while also validating their partner. Having equal time to speak and to listen helps abandon the idea of right vs. wrong, and instead works to find a solution that best suits the couple as a unit.
4) It’s more important to love someone’s otherness than to search for perfect compatibility
In relationships, we often search for our “perfect match” — or as close to it as possible. Guralnik explains that rather than focusing on compatibility, we should focus on loving everything about our partner, even the things that we don’t love at all. She describes this as loving their “otherness,” meaning everything about them that we don’t understand or agree with. This act is not only difficult, but scary. In accepting our partner’s otherness, it can make us feel as though our own identities are becoming less significant. We forgo the things that ground us to make room for our partner’s beliefs, which can leave us feeling lost.
Accepting otherness also poses the challenge of navigating conflicting loyalties. Do we choose ourselves (our beliefs, family, etc.) or do we choose our partner? Inviting otherness can feel like a threat, yet this is the entire basis of coupling. We create a permeable wall between our worlds — inviting our partner to our side and traveling to theirs — instead of searching for someone who shares our exact world.
5) Describe what you need and the feelings you’re having as clearly as possible
When describing how you feel to your partner, it’s easiest to use simple terms. “I feel sad.” “I am angry.” In the show, Guralnik challenges these descriptions, asking the person to explain how they feel, and then elaborate, and then elaborate again. Suddenly, feelings of sadness become feelings of loneliness and the fear of abandonment. What is useful about watching this on screen is that it teaches us how to properly describe feelings in our own relationships, without a therapist in sight. Instead of simply using the first word that comes to mind, try finding three nuanced words that each relate to the experience.
Equally, Guralnik employs role play to clearly identify what the person is looking for. If someone does not like the way they are spoken to, she urges them to come up with better alternatives. This not only brings clarity to the partner, but to the person asking, finding a direct route to what they truly want.
6) Understand that sometimes your partner simply can’t give you what you want or need
Perhaps the most difficult lesson learned while watching Couples Therapy is that our partners can’t provide everything we ask of them. No one can expect to be fixed by their partner, and equally, no one can rely on their partner for everything that they want.
This idea is part of the show’s overarching lesson — that much of couples therapy ultimately concerns the individual.
7) Sex and intimacy differ from desire
The initial spark of sexual drive in relationships inevitably fades over time, leaving a blurred line between the act of sex and the broader idea of intimacy. Many couples struggle to decipher whether they want to have more sex or want the relationship to be more intimate. Guralnik explains that the common underlying theme in most relationships is not about sex or intimacy at all, but about desire. Both people in a relationship want to feel desired by their partner, but they also want to desire them in return. This can look different from couple to couple, and often is solved both in and out of the bedroom.
8) Relationships are incredibly difficult
Perhaps the most obvious, yet most overlooked takeaway from Couples Therapy is that relationships are incredibly difficult. We bring decades of our traumas and experiences to a stranger, meeting their entirely different load of baggage. Conflicts are inevitable. In this, we forget that trust, vulnerability, problem-solving, and the willingness to communicate do not come equally to everyone. It can feel as though we speak a completely different language to our partner — and in many ways we do.
Over the weeks and months that these couples work with Guralnik, we see not only deep progress and uncovering, but also the introduction of new battles. Couples therapy is an ongoing process, only made manageable by the people in the relationship.
And yet, each week, the couples arrive at the couch and hash it out, again. Through screaming matches, breakups and make-ups, and endless boxes of tissues, Couples Therapy highlights just how difficult relationships are. But if I could sum up what I learned from the show in one thought, it would be that despite it all, relationships are worth it.
