At the core of Showtime’s docuseries “Couples Therapy” is a mission to pull back the curtain on the work that goes into bettering interpersonal relationships. At PvNew and Rolling Stone’s Truth Seekers Summit presented by Showtime, clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst Dr. Orna Guralnik disclosed that “truth is the essence of the show.”
“My job is to figure out what each person’s truth is,” said Guralnik of her role on the show and then adding that the next step is finding, “how can I help them tolerate each other’s truth.”
With three seasons under her belt, Guralnik discussed the varying definitions of “truth” she has found individuals hold on the show. “There’s what we all imagine is ‘the truth,’” said Guralnik. “We cannot function with complete and direct contact with truth all the time, so we [tend] to sift and choose and defend what to tolerate.”
“There’s truth and there’s conscious reality — what we choose to pay attention to and what we don’t want to know,” she continued. “Then there’s all these defensive operations that we all have to use to be able to manage our life.”
Guralnik’s key focus with “Couples Therapy,” though, is attributed to the couples that are cast on the show, but also “the audience in a way.” The show has undoubtedly shone a light on therapy, one of her initial hopes was that the series would be able to “have people understand what’s actually involved in serious therapy.”
“There’s a lot of transference through therapists generally,” Guralnik explained, reiterating that her hope was to prove her profession is serious and about providing “real care” to patients in need of such.
Guralnik, too, revealed that the objective of the series has shifted across its three seasons. “Our ambitions turned more towards what’s happening in this country and having people develop a capacity to have multiple perspectives,” stating the evolution of the show has “became more of an ethical/political agenda.”Guralnik hopes that when working with her patients, they’ll “be able to entertain multiple perspectives of truth, which I wish this country could do.”
Watch the full conversation above.
