Chapter 1: What is the biggest mistake couples make before therapy?
Hello, and welcome back to the Friday Feels episode of the You Up podcast. I'm Jordana Abraham.
And I am Jared Freed. It is so good to be back here with you, Jordana. But it is especially good because we have a very special guest today. They are the, I would call you the host, but also the couples therapist on the show, Couples Therapy. And it's coming out to Showtime, the new season on May 15th. A real get for us. We've been trying forever. We're so happy to have her.
Dr. Orna Goralnik, thank you for coming on the show.
Cool. Thank you for inviting me.
It's a pleasure. Thank you for doing this. How are you today? What's going on? What goes on in Dr. Orna's life?
Today's a good day. Today's a good day.
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Chapter 2: How does 'agree to disagree' affect relationships?
Yesterday was Mother's Day, which was really fun.
Amazing.
And I also handed in the final version of my book yesterday.
That's a bigger day than Mother's Day, I gotta say.
Yeah, it's a big day. That's a big day.
You're on a show with a couple of people who've written books and that's a stressful time writing a book.
Yeah, it was an intense two years. Yeah. And the book is like about like your experience in being a couples therapist.
It's a book about relationships, about couples, the whole thing that we do, like coupling up.
Right. And so obviously you're the couples therapist on the show Couples Therapy. But like how like how long have you been a therapist? Like what's your what's your background? What made you want to become a therapist? A therapist, did you only do couples or did you do individual too? Like I want to know the whole thing.
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Chapter 3: What are the signs that couples therapy is too early?
Should I answer it all in one sentence?
Under 30 seconds. No, I'm just kidding. I'm a therapist. I'm a psychoanalyst. So I see individual patients in analysis and I also see couples. And I've been a therapist for many years, probably longer than the two of you have been alive.
You're 85 years old.
Jared's pretty old.
Holy shit.
How old are you, Jared?
I'm 65. No, I'm 41.
I've been working for a long time. Oh, wow.
I mean, you brought it up. I hope this is it. How old are you, Dr. Orna?
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Chapter 4: When is it officially too late for couples therapy?
You're 62? 62 and rocking. Unbelievable. Wow. You don't get personal. You know, that's something that... That's pretty personal. That's very personal is your age. But I'm saying generally, though, like you don't... You have a kind of a policy. Why is that... What's the reason for the policy?
First of all, is that like a well-known thing now in the industry?
Yeah.
No, it was in our notes. I didn't know it until now. And I was like, holy shit, that's good. Because I just attacked someone for coming on our show and having a dating podcast and not revealing what they did for work.
And I was like, it feels different to have a dating podcast where you're getting personal and not reveal what you do for work than it is to be a couples therapist and say, I'm not going to talk about my marriage. I can almost understand that. Yeah. But I wanted to hear what you had to say about it.
It's interesting.
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Chapter 5: How can couples respect each other's differences?
I had to go through a very long process of convincing the directors of the series for them to understand why it's important for me not to be a person with a lot of personality and personal details on the show.
The idea is basically to allow my patients, whether it's on the show or my actual patients in my private practice, to have the freedom to not have to worry about me, not have to have my personal details on their mind when they're exploring their own stuff. It's basically to free up some space for people to... Just do their own work.
You know, when you know a lot of details about another person, you start thinking about them, caring about them, being concerned. I want people to feel free to just like do what they need to do and for me to be their therapist. And refraining from kind of indulging with your personal life is a very important aspect of it.
Okay. And then so is it strange for your clients, I guess? Patients. Is it strange for your patients to kind of like... be able to see you on TV while also, you know, like the ones who aren't on the show?
I think for my private practice patients, me being suddenly like a therapist on TV, it's difficult. They're probably paying the biggest price for me having decided to do this.
What type of price?
I don't know if you guys have been in therapy, but you like to think of your therapist as your person, not like you're sharing them with a million other people and with, you know, you don't like your mom watching your therapist on TV and making comments. it's, it's a lot of, they have to share me.
That's a good point. Yeah.
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Chapter 6: What role does communication play in relationships?
Yep. Not great. You're like under the illusion that it's like almost that it's yours.
The person is yours.
Yeah.
I mean, in a way the therapist is yours, but it kind of rubs your face in the fact that the therapist has more going on.
Totally true. I can, now that you're saying that, I can imagine that must be, I've been in therapy for like 10 years and, um, I like to think of myself as my therapist's favorite patient.
Of course.
And you probably are. I'm sure. I do say so myself.
Are you surprised by the feedback that you get for the therapy that gets posted and kind of goes wild on TikTok? Because that's how I'm aware of you. The show always looks like, I got to watch that show. Like it's a great, whatever TikToks you're doing. And I know Jordana's a huge fan of the show. And I admittedly, I just see your TikToks just come up like crazy. And I'm always drawn in and
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Chapter 7: How can couples navigate disagreements effectively?
your demeanor is a big part of that. Like it's just, you're, you're kind of letting these people go a little bit, which is not a normal thing as I don't let you go. But like, were you surprised?
Yeah, definitely. I was surprised by, I mean, I'm not aware of the whole TikTok world. I don't go on TikTok and I don't know what's going on there with me being on TikTok. But in terms of the success of the show, we've all been like very happily surprised.
It was a big experiment launching this show, like both an experiment in terms of whether it's going to work at all in terms of therapy, whether people are going to feel comfortable enough to really go through the process of therapy, knowing that they're being recorded. but then how the world is going to see it and accept it.
And it was like a big surprise early on how much love and gratitude we got. Now we're almost a decade in, so I'm kind of spoiled. I'm used to it, but we do. We get a lot of love and gratitude from all over the world. It's pretty awesome. I mean, especially nowadays when it's like, you know, it's hard to be doing something good in this world. It's a good feeling.
How did you get involved with the project and the show? Was it your idea? No.
No, no, no.
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Chapter 8: What advice does Dr. Orna give for healthy relationships?
It was Josh and Elise's idea. Josh Kriegman and Elise Steinberg, the directors and the EPs. They've been cooking this idea for a while. And they reached out to me. I'm an academic. I teach at my... psychoanalytic institute and they found me through my institute and reached out to me there.
And I mean, first it seemed kind of like way out there and like, I don't know, but they, I just really hit it off with them. They're just such great people. So I just decided to take the leap of faith with them and turned out so awesome.
Probably the best way to get found. You know what I mean? I don't think you want a therapist who's auditioning to do the show.
Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. I mean, I'm a big fan of the show. I think I started watching pre pandemic in like 2019 and then, you know, watching the pandemic ones also was like its own interesting little like moment in time. But what is like, is I always wonder this because, you know, sometimes I watch a lot of reality TV and,
And sometimes the couple in reality TV is going to a therapist and it's on camera. And I'm always wondering like, what are the ethics Because it is such an intimate, personal thing. Like what are the ethics of airing an actual couples session? Like how does that play into it?
It's a really good question because generally the ethics of my profession is, are, I do not ever disclose anything about my work with patients ever, except to my supervisors. But like, it's like a very strict rule. frame of confidentiality. Like I don't get to talk to anyone about my patients. Like you can't gossip. It's really important to keep privacy. Like I'm a vault generally.
Um, but when people sign up to do something like to participate in a film, then they give up on all of that. It changes the whole frame of the therapy, which is one of the things I wasn't sure would work.
Do you get worried about like the, the patients that you're seeing that are on TV, like their mental health, if people get like come after them on Tik TOK or something or like, you know, things like that. Cause there's definitely, I mean, I've, especially from watching season one, I feel like there's definitely like a villain, even if that's not, you know, in the traditional sense.
Right. No, people, we've had situations. I mean, most people, most of the participants get a huge amount of love from the world just for being willing to put themselves out there and people really identify with them. But once in a while, you know, people have this tendency to want a villain. And if people don't watch the whole, um,
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