Orna Guralnik (Couples Therapy)

Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert experts on Expert. I'm Dan. rather, I'm joined by Modest Mouse.

We have the most special guest today. I can't believe this happened to us.

Some people in the comments sensed the easter egg, which I didn't mind at all because they were as excited as we were about it. Our very favorite therapist from our favorite show, which is called Couples Therapy, our doctor in residence on Couples therapy, Orna Guralnik, Orna's here, Orna. Oh my god, what a thrill this was.

I wish I could measure how much brain space I give to Orna, how much I think about her and her advice and her abilities.

I want her advice, me, too.

Spoiler We did the right thing and we didn't take up this interview asking personal advice.

But it was tempting.

Sometimes it came out a little bit.

Yeah, a little bit happened right out of the gates, I think, okay. Orna is a clinical psychologist and a psychoanalysist. She is on the faculty at NYU Postdoctoral Institute for Psychoanalysis and at the National Institute for the Psychotherapies. Season four premieres tomorrow on Paramount Plus with Showtime Couples Therapy Season four.

It's so good.

So please enjoy. Orna Guralnik.

He's an object's man.

He's an object's man.

He's an object's man.

Is that Nico?

You're the one I've been waiting to meet, Nico.

There's a fox in the attic.

It's a wolf, not a fox.

No, she's a fox.

She's a wolf.

Hi, sweet wolf, she's a wolf in fox clothing, which is a rare.

That was never a curse. She's actually a human in a wolf's clothing.

Nice to meet you. we're so excited. thank you for inviting me. I brought a fam. You can indulge us with some fandom.

But you're on par with Nico for me, so I'm gonna take my moment because I'm getting a nice push against my body.

She's smiling, she's smiling.

She's smiling.

Did you say, Mom, I have a friend?

How old is Nico?

Nico's almost eight, Nico, why don't we just show you getting friendly with us? She's got the energy, but she's almost eight.

Her face is so youthful. I know, Oh, another friend is here.

Oh, guys, here.

Nico's here.

Hello, oh, it's Mom girl, excuse me, sorry.

You're very popular.

Very Nico's a-.

Kind of like the dog in anatomy of a fall.

Was that dog's name Nico?

No, but she's, oh yes, holding a lot of secrets.

Oh, thank you.

Hi, Monica, Hi.

So nice to meet you. I'm thrilled to have you. Yeah, you're in the right place.

It's only once in a while we have someone that is in something we consume, you know, pathologically. Yeah, yeah, because there's only so many shows, so it's like once in a while someone from our very favorite show comes, and it's extra exciting.

Well, if Nico needs anything, I'm in the house, if she needs a potty break, I'm happy to take her out. Have a wonderful time.

I can't wait to hear it. Hi Monnie, Hi Liddy, Hi.

Did you have fun on your trip?

So much fun, have a wonderful time you guys.

Love you, love you Monnie. How was your two days?

It was fine.

It was fine.

Yeah, I had a little bit of a meltdown and I have a big update for you.

Oh my goodness, yeah. Involving the people on the sidewalk.

No.

Okay.

I haven't seen that. Oh, actually, I do have an update, so I've been....

I'm curious what's happening?

I've been going on runs and there's a group of people who stand in the middle of the sidewalk for an hour. That's obviously a place they've decided to congregate and talk and talk. And it's a lot of people, a lot of dogs. And they don't move when you're coming, when you're running down the street.

But.

I hit her with the serenity prayer from AA. Yeah, just might fall into the category of things I cannot change.

It's the obvious solution.

Yes, except, but you don't want the obvious.

I don't, I don't.

You want to fight?

Actually, I don't want to fight because I would.

You just want the world to change.

I do want the world to change. And, to be fair to me, the other route would require the run to be a lot harder.

Cause it's all outside. Ah, so you're just lazy.

God, Oh no, this is awful.

This is awful.

You know, what's amazing is you're getting to do something you don't actually do on the show. Which is like, you run right at it. Like, I'm going to solve all this in eight minutes, not 10 weeks.

No, no, no, I did change, I changed my time. There we go. That's not the update.

As you might guess from your reaction, and I had a certain one, it's been a polarizing topic in the comments.

Oh, it has.

Oh, it has, I don't need that. There's a lot of team Monica and there's a lot of people going, you know, saying what?

That I should run in the street.

No more what I brought up. Which is like, if you look at it from a utilitarian point of view, it's like, you know what, you're one person. There are 10 people communing. This is just measurably more effort.

More effort for them to not.

For 10 people to adjust what they're doing versus the one person running.

Even though what they're doing is.

Also, if they're standing and talking with their dogs, it's probably a nice thing.

Community.

But in the middle of the sidewalk, where everyone's walking.

Sidewalk.

Do you think the sidewalk is for standing and taking up space or moving?

Orna, I need you on mic for this.

Yeah, this is huge, this is huge, this is huge of an ever evolving crisis here.

Yeah, for a couple of days, there's always a situation.

This should cue you into our level of privilege, that this is the enormous issue in our combined life.

It's symbolic.

Enormously, she is a minority, this is the majority.

Oh, right, there's minority also.

I mean, I didn't even think about that.

All right, I need to readjust.

Okay, there we go.

You forgot I was a minority in this world.

And specifically from Georgia, so from the South, I think that group does represent something a little bigger.

So the group needs to immediately move.

No, they don't need to move, they don't need to stop congregating, they just need to take one step out of the way. When someone is coming through, I just can't imagine someone running at me and me, just staring at them and not moving.

There's also an interesting dynamic that you live in New York and we live in L.A. which has its own cultures about moving about.

What is the culture here?

You know what's funny?

If you're in a car, you never stop.

Right, you try to run everyone down. You have this illusion of anonymity in it, and so you behave in a way that you would never on the sidewalk. That's fascinating.

Which in New York is not true. The pedestrians totally rule.

Yeah, yes.

And it's incredibly democratizing. Even if you're a billionaire, you have to walk on that same sidewalk. Now. What do you make?-?

In New York, if it was crowded, if someone did that, people would freak out.

If someone did, what?

If they couldn't get through.

You're constantly in situations where you have to maneuver around everything. Whether it's the city drilling into the street for the hundredth time, that's true, or like a line for something for a show or a bus. I mean, you're constantly maneuvering around a lot of people and you just adjust, you just move around.

There's also the randomly seven 800 bags of trash, like it's trash Day and now there's a mountain of trash in the evening. Yeah, I'm not being disparaging.

I haven't noticed the trash.

You haven't, no, you're probably not out late enough now. I know something about you, I'm not early.

I don't want to wear them great.

I was curious because it would not feel nice and you're like, I don't want that feeling.

I never wear headphones on interviews and stuff like that. I don't understand why people do it actually.

I could tell you, tell me. From my point of view, it eliminates and reduces the stimuli to just your voice and Monica's, so it's a very kind of focusing auditory experience.

I don't need that, I have super focus and I actually like to hear all the ambience, so it feels real. If I'm too in the headphones, I'm like, Wait, am I? In reality? Is this pretend?

It kind of makes you self-conscious of what you're hearing, or overly aware of it.

It's just super focus, I don't need the super focus, I have my own bizarre, dissociative focus. I don't need more of that. I want to feel in reality.

I like it, okay. So when did you move to New York?

1990.

From Israel.

Yeah, I was born in the states. Oh, I was born in Georgia. Oh my gosh, no, I was born in D.C. and lived in Georgia.

Okay.

I don't know the neighborhood in Atlanta, yeah. Moved to Israel when I was seven, My parents are Israeli, and I lived in Europe. I lived in all sorts of places, but came back to the United States in 1990 for grad school.

At Nyu.

Went to grad school at Einstein, which is in the Bronx. Okay, I did NYU later when I did psychoanalytic training.

And I wanted to actually start with more of an umbrella question. There's obviously numerous reasons why a therapist keeps their private life private. I mean, you could list them, but there's quite obvious ones. There's like, it's a pretty important place for boundaries.

Can you tell me what your-?

Assumption is.

Yeah.

My assumption of why that wall should exist to some degree, I think that knowing a lot about you distracts the person to some degree, and probably you are unavoidably drawn to make comparison. Like, if you have children and I have children and I'm dealing with something like. I'm going to start using a lot of shortcuts, like, you know, and you understand, I'm going to be incorporating you a lot more than probably is fruitful. Is that some of it?

That's a lot of it. When you know too much about another person, at least some of us feel inclined to then start taking care of them. Oh yeah, it takes the focus away from you, as you were saying. Whether it's comparison or caretaking, or assumptions that oh, I'm gay, they're straight, they're going to judge me. It brings a lot of extra data into the room that gets in the way.

It's why you have a therapist, sort of to have it be a third party.

Yeah, and then there's that thing called transference. You want the option for there to be somewhat of a blank screen. So that you can project all sorts of things that you don't know and assume about your therapist. And that's part of the work that's, like, really interesting.

Yeah, I would imagine, too. I could easily hear some details and now ascribe an archetype to you that is already triggering to me. Or resembles some parent or some teacher, or whatever the thing is.

Or you'll hear some details and it will rob you of an archetype that you really needed to work on. Let's say you wanted to think that your therapist is a bigot. And then you find out actually, they're married to a person very different from them, and it kind of ruins the fantasy.

So, given that, do you have certain reservations and misgivings about doing press and letting people get to know you and doing interviews?

And doing the show right, let's start with that. First of all, I do keep certain boundaries, even when I do press, and I have people do profiles on me, and I did draw certain boundaries. That I thought would be just too much for my patients, but I think it's cost my patients something. The fact that I'm more of a public figure, that they know more about me.

Has anyone said anything? It's interesting.

Patients that have been with me since before I became this kind of public figure. They've said all sorts of things, lots of things. Yes, they've said they've suffered, they've carried a certain burden. But it became part of the work. As most things are people that joined my practice since I've been doing it, it's just like a given.

Okay, it would be impossible that you're not experiencing a lot of the things an actor experiences when they become known and the people in their life. It's a very triggering experience because the first knee-jerk fear is like, Well, I won't be as important as this new status, or they're going to a status that I will get left behind. So that's the story. So then the confirmation bias kind of takes over and they look for only signs that that's happening and I think it can dramatically affect. So, yeah, I would imagine some patients of yours are probably like, What am I? She's now on TV and she's everywhere.

Yes, I think many patients have had that question and it keeps coming up. If I have to, let's say cancel a session, or now I'm traveling, certain patients will be like, Oh, of course, you're leaving me or canceling my session. Because Hollywood? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So have you figured out an incredible technique to mitigate that? Because I could sure benefit from that.

My real work, my real life, is my practice. I love doing the show and I love everything I've learned from it. And it's a really interesting world to visit. But my real life is my practice, that's where my heart is, that's what I really, really love doing.

Yeah, that's your real identity.

I mean, everything is real, but that's my home, that's what I care about the most. When patients bring up these kind of questions, it's an opportunity for me to check in with myself and see, am I still following what really matters to me? Am I getting distracted? So I welcome it when people bring things up.

You're right, because it has a power that's very hard to observe.

Right, there's a draw to the public and to press, and all of that in a certain kind of world of its own. And it's great to have a real check-in. When people say, Are you too busy for me? and I'm like, let me think about that.

Well, let me be honest about that.

First of all, with myself. So I encourage my patients to call me on it if that's what it feels like.

Yeah, given that, are you comfortable telling me about where you're from and all that? Yeah, okay, good, so seven years old.

I don't know anyone. Okay, that's like the most embarrassing thing. I don't know anyone.

That's wonderful.

He's not a celebrity, he's just like an intellectual guy.

He is incredible. Eric Lander, head of Broad Institute at MIT. People who study things that are really, really complex and they have this enormous brain that they bring to bear on it. And then what I also think is kind of interesting is very few of them, I think they take for granted the thing that interested them was innately interesting, and they're not really curious so much about why. That was a comforting pursuit.

You're thinking like an analyst.

Okay, so I'm wondering, I would be guessing. But moving a lot, all those dynamics and being in group, out group. And how are people thinking? And being very incentivized to understand how people think. Was that happening?

Totally, I was always with one foot in a culture and one foot out. My first language was English, and my parents spoke Hebrew between them, and I was the only Jew. In my first elementary school, I was always navigating a few different cultures at the same time.

Do you find that you would code switch? we maybe call it code switching? And then you even get curious, Do I even know? Could it get a little fragmented in a way?

It certainly helped with creating what we call, kind of, in jargon, multiple self-states, so I have all sorts of self-states. When I'm speaking Hebrew and I'm with my peers, I have a certain slang and a certain way of being, that's me. And then when I switch to English and speak with my colleagues, I'm a different part of myself, so I code switch a lot.

Yeah, do you figure it out? Or you just get comfortable? You go, Oh yeah, I'm all these things and that's just fine.

I'm all these things, it's not always fine, but I'm all these things. I think in a way, switching between all these different options has become sort of my life project. In the sense that when you work with couples, really. What you're trying to do, both as a therapist and what you're trying to teach people to do, is to hold multiple perspectives in mind. You have a version of what happened, the person next to you has a very different version of what happened. And they might actually be totally valid.

On the show, you do get to see that, because what I love about the show is we see you with your mentor.

With Virginia.

Yeah, who seems amazing? And then you're with your other colleagues and then we see you in practice. And you are a bit different in each of the surroundings, which is cool. And it is what we all do.

Aren't we all? You're right.

It's really fascinating. For ease of generic title. You're the boss in the room, you sit in the seat and then you go sit in this other seat and it's like, Oh, it's a circle. So then this is more egalitarian, and then yes, there's this kind of advisor role, and we get to, yes. See, you take on these different.

I like that.

Layers in the hierarchy, which is fun. Now. You got your P.h.D. in the 90s, there were options on the table at that time, right? CBT is already an approach, and a lot of these things are approaches, so why?

To describe the difference?

And maybe the evolution from freud psychoanalyzing until now awesome, really. Yeah, in an article you wrote that I read, you gave us a really concise layout of that.

Oh, that's fun. Should I start more with theoretically, or should I start about my own journey?

Yeah, tell me about your journey, because you're taking an intro to psych at some point.

Right, my intro to Psych was not in college. My intro to Psych was as a teenager. I had, let's say, a very active teenage life. Tumultuous, wild. And I got really, really lucky. Where my parents, who were clueless, but they somehow found this incredible analyst for me, who changed my life.

At what age?

16.

That's what your article I read was about.

That's the piece in the Times, probably.

Yeah, about the impact of BLM and me, too, materializing in these relationships, so I think people understand this intuitively. We talked about it just now. When Monica sees this group on the street and they're all the hegemonic group, that means many things. It means the immediate thing, which is it's an obstacle, and then it means potentially other things from the subconscious.

You had to mention it. I didn't even clock that as a factor.

But I know her so well.

You would have within five minutes of talking, probably you didn't have much time with me to get there, I don't know.

I don't know, I think if I wasn't quote White, probably I would have been more sensitive to that.

I didn't think about it, I didn't think about it until you said that, and I still don't know if it. Well, I don't know.

She don't want to give me a star.

I don't know for sure.

At least to think about it, at least for it to be one of the dimensions.

I can give a personal antidote, which is just generally I get along so well with our nine-year-old, we have a very nice symbiotic flow.

Boy.

Girl, both girls. And the nine-year-old is very much like my wife, so I have a lot of practice and then, similarly, the 11-year-old's like me and she does very well with her. So we rarely have a thing and we're laying in bed and we're debating whether this math problem we did the day before, the answer was this or that.

But actually, something quite profound is happening for you.

Yes, and the stakes are high. If there's anyone I want to appear to be smart in front of, it's my children.

Of course.

So that would be my subconscious, right? Yes, does it frustrate you? I get a little frustrated because we do interview people that practice many different approaches to this. Are you annoyed by the techniques being pitted against each other?

I agree with you, there is a way in which I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about these shorter term techniques. First of all, there's the way in which managed care has taken over medicine and the mental health field and has demanded a certain level of superficiality. That I find really troubling.

Like, they want results and they want a timeline.

I don't know what they mean by results. Stop complaining and just be quiet, medicate yourself and just stop complaining, that's not results. For a psychoanalyst, a lot of the complaining is about things that should be complained about and need deep addressing. So in that sense, I have a bit of a chip about shorter term techniques.

I guess I'm suggesting it's all a false dichotomy. Which is, you could be doing that work. And you could also assemble a toolkit for these acute periods where that's appropriate. That's the tool to pull out at that moment.

Yeah, and I refer to cognitive behavioral therapists or to EMDR. I like working with people that work that way.

It's just funny to see tribalism percolate up in something so like.

Right, I think when it's tribalism, that's just ego, so not interesting.

Now, take us from Freud's kind of primary concept with the subconscious, and then where we're at now.

In terms of, like, psychoanalytic thinking, yeah, fun questions. Thank you so freud. He introduced a few hugely important revolutionary concepts.

Yeah, and dangerous.

And needing to be regulated, we're always regulating sexuality. society is always super panicky, anxious about sexuality and all about regulation.

I think uniquely here, but maybe not uniquely.

We're pretty good at it in America.

Yeah, we're high on the spectrum.

And then came people after Freud, like the Kleinians, the British Object Relations School. That started looking not only at drives like sexuality or aggression, but they started looking at early childhood and what happened, for example, between mothers and babies. It doesn't have to be mothers, but they particularly looked at mothers and really early experiences, even at the breast. Where what we like to think of as these beautific moments of bliss between mother and baby, actually, they hold within them huge dramas. You remember from raising your kids. The baby can be blissfully happy. And then, 20 minutes later, they're wet and hungry, and they're like screaming, and the world is ending.

Worst and best day of their life. Within 20 minutes, yeah.

The great mom that was there a minute ago, the great dad that was there a minute ago are now the most hated object in the world. Because they're not able to supply the food fast enough, they're cold or they're, I don't know, busy on the phone. And those switches between love and hate, and between those extreme ways of being are where we all start. And whether the caretakers are gonna do a good job of mitigating that kind of daily crisis is gonna shape what we expect for the rest of life. Is the world gonna help me when I'm in need, or is the world just basically abandoning and sucky?

Is this the birth of attachment theory?

Yes, for example, attachment theory and all sorts of other ways that we learn to organize our inner world, it's attachment theory. It's the kind of defenses we will use, psychological defenses. A lot gets organized early in life, so that's kind of the object relations school.

Blow right through that.

Yeah, but then came a very important American school, which is the Interpersonal school, which really focused on the quality of relationships, both between caregivers and growing children. But also just generally between people and how the quality of the relationship shapes the inner world, which is a very American way of thinking in a good way, I'm not being critical here. And that changed psychoanalysis a lot. The Europeans are still kind of dragging behind on that. And nowadays there's what we call the relational school, which applies all of that into how we conduct therapy.

Do you only do couples?

I see individuals, I love the work with individuals, I like the combination.

Yeah, the couples are so fascinating.

Yeah.

I would like you to tell me what systems thinking is, because I know that's a big aspect of this.

Right? Systems thinking is super important when you work with couples and when you work with groups. The idea with systems thinking is that we each bring into the world a set of inclinations and traits and characteristics. But then when you're joining some kind of group or system, it could be a group of two, it could be a team, it could be a family. The system needs all sorts of things from its members, like it needs someone to volunteer. Leadership capabilities.

What I was gonna suggest, as an example, that people I think experience most strongly is they go out into their adult life and they kind of gravitate toward a system that they wanted. And then they return home for the holidays. And you can feel yourself click into the role you were ascribed in that situation, and you're like, No, no, no, no, I don't want this role anymore. I feel like that's when people are really aware of it.

Yes, and that's why around the holidays I cannot go on vacation.

Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare.

In my family, yeah, well, I'm about to go home, I'm going home tonight and I'm already anxious. How are you feeling?

Already, where's home?

Georgia. They're still there and I was with them also a couple weeks ago and I have an incredible therapist as well. And I got back from there and I was like, I can't shed this. We talk about it so much and it's still here. What's happening?

Like?

Okay, so when we were at the-.

Can I add So, you know, they both moved here from India.

Yes, but my mom grew up-.

The way of being parents.

Yes, my parents, but my mom grew up here, she came when she was six. And so they came to my hotel and they call and they're like, Is it this hotel? and I was like, Yeah, that's the hotel I sent you, yes.

Just park, park your car.

Yeah, like, I have done a lot of Don't leave it in drive.

Do not leave it in drive when you get out.

That one's not going to work.

And I've done a lot of work on this. So I was like, don't get-.

Don't get mad.

Yeah, they don't know where to park. It's fine, just valet, valet's easy, you can just drive right up and give them the car. Okay, it's like, okay, bye, you know?

Speaking of role, is it also because you're born here? You're the one that knows and they get to lean on you? Yes.

Well, and it's dangerous, actually. If they expose how out of step they are with what everyone else knows, for me, they're exposing their otherness.

That's how I think my subconscious is working, right? As always, when we're at the dinner. If I perceive that my dad doesn't know how to pronounce something, I feel like I have to be the one to order it. Because I don't want anyone-.

To translate to mitigate.

Yeah, to not draw attention to the fact that we're different.

You're so wonderfully different, though, by the way.

I know I know you're just the most I know, logically.

I just wanted to add that.

And he doesn't consciously have any of this for him. He's just like, I want to know about the valet. I've made it, this existential thing, where how is he living without me? Essentially, you're to answer all his questions.

But can I ask you, speaking of systems thinking, when you're not around, he probably knows how to deal with the valet.

He's quite successful, yeah.

They are both totally functioning, and that's what my therapist is always like. They are fine, they're living, they're successful, they're doing just fine, but I've made it. If they don't know how to go deal with the valet, they're going to die.

Again, it's symbolic of everything. I get it, I get it, it's intense.

I totally get it, these parental, these family arrangements, and then my brother's just there, doesn't care.

Cause he's not the girl.

He's got a great role in the system.

Yeah, he's second, eight years younger than me.

He's got what.

He's got a great role in the system.

What's his role?

He doesn't have to deal with any of the shit and he's just hanging.

Sometimes I look at him and I think, why aren't you feeling this kind of stress that I'm feeling? But that's my issue. Yeah, well, anyway, I forgot, oh yeah, holidays.

And systems trying to evaluate, I think what's interesting? we've had a systems expert talking about systems in general. They're very interesting. They are perfectly designed. To produce the outcome you're observing. You have to almost work backwards with systems, right?

Yes.

You have done a lot of work on disassociation, maybe we could dig in a little bit of what that means for people. I think it's very common.

It's a spectrum.

The one I'm not familiar with that seems like a sister state is depersonalization. I don't know what that is.

Generally, dissociation. Going back to Freud. You really introduced the concept of repression, that if there's something you don't want to know about yourself or something happened to you, you repress it. Meaning it happened, you registered it and then you push it out of mind, you forget that was in quotes.

That almost happened to someone else, because to take that on would be too much.

Exactly so. There are many ways to dissociate. some extreme ways would be multiple personality, what we call dissociative identity disorder. You really shunt parts of the psyche to the side, and they develop like a whole world of their own.

And this one is so extreme that there's almost a lack of awareness that the other states exist, right, right?

One of the ways that we think about multiple personality is that one part of the psyche doesn't even know about these other personalities. Or there's amnesia for what the other personalities are going through. I treat people with multiple. Or did you've seen it?

Well, this season, we have someone that's approaching that.

Yes, Alexis, he has a dissociative disorder.

And to the degree where he doesn't remember the arguments he's having with his partner.

Yes, Alexis, what happens to him is he's very afraid of his own rage, and there are all sorts of reasons why. And when he gets triggered and gets enraged, or triggered into like a trauma zone, he really switches and becomes a very different kind of person.

Who can defend himself?

Who can sort of defend himself more?

He's trying.

He's trying.

Globally, he's actually making much more pain for himself.

Right?

That one is hard to watch.

And going back to depersonalization, when people depersonalize, what happens to them is in a way. They sort of remove themselves from what's happening. They either really numb out the feeling, or they kind of leave their body and look at what's happening from the ceiling.

Okay, that's what I relate to.

You do, yeah.

Having gone through experiences where I go like, Okay, we're gonna not pay attention. This is gonna exist. I can observe it, but I'm gonna be over here, distracting myself with my own thoughts and fantasies. And this will end at some point and then I'll rejoin.

Yeah.

Yeah, I've had a lot of those experiences.

Interesting.

So I really relate to that one. I guess I would have thought that was dissociation.

It is dissociation, when we call it depersonalization is when you suddenly find yourself feeling like, actually, this doesn't feel real. It feels like a movie.

Yeah.

That's depersonalization.

Or I can't feel the things that are happening to my body, which I know are happening.

That's depersonalization. When it's mild, it can be a superpower, but when it's not mild, it's extremely uncomfortable.

And it works. I have done it in the past when it wasn't necessary, yeah.

Do you wanna say something about it?

Well, I was molested, so that was an experience.

As a kid.

Yeah, as a kid, there was a lot of violent stepdads in the mix. Addiction galore I'm an addict, I've done weird shit. I think it was a very useful tool as I was walking into a crack house in downtown Detroit at four in the morning. Going well, this is dangerous for him.

But I'm just like floating.

Yes, I am, and I will have the thing I want at some point here in the near future, and then I'll rejoin him.

And when your actions aren't matching your identity, what you think of yourself as and your actions are not matching up, I think that is common, right? Where you just separate.

Yeah, what is that specifically? Is that the same?

When your actions don't match what you say, that could be simply hypocrisy.

Right, right, it could just be bad behavior.

We have plenty of people like that in the government. But when you're in a way splitting yourself, when there's a part that's almost zombie-like doing something and your mind is over here, that's dissociation.

Specific example would be like, when I was a thief, when I was an addict. Oh, we were at a person's house, that person was nice, and then I noticed they had extra drugs and then I stole from them. And I go, we don't do this.

In that moment, that's a really great way to describe dissociation.

Being in a relationship with someone like that, like in this season.

Like Kazimar and Alexis.

Yes, feels so heavy, like I hate to impossible. He doesn't have memories that the other person has that are painful and aggressive and hurt them. But they don't even know that they did it. It just feels so epic.

Yeah, it is epic. I mean, you saw the two of them. What they had going for them is their deep psychological insight into all of this, and, first of all, their profound love for each other. They were in process of working on this stuff.

I wanna earmark that case because it actually got kind of personal to you and we saw maybe one of your bad word for it. But Achilles?

Yes.

Because, of course, as a show, you're the hero of our story, so it's interesting to have a pretty insatiable desire to know about you. And there's not a lot of info for us.

Well, there is.

There is and there isn't. I don't know your history, I don't know about your children, I learned you're from Israel. Or spent time little nuggets here and there. But a lead character normally would have had kind of an introduction where we get the backstory and then we take a journey with them.

I have to respond to that first of all, it's uncomfortable.

Sure.

Just characterologically, but the therapist, in a way, is to some degree the lead character in a therapy, but also not at all. I'm doing the work, I'm the theory.

I was really unspecific in what I was talking about. There's the reality of what's happening that happens to get captured, and there you're right, you're not the hero of that.

I guess I'm less connected to that.

As you should be, I'm almost letting you into the perspective.

Of the viewer.

That would be hard for you to probably touch, which is? I turn on my television? There's a program presented to me, the couples change, one person stays consistent. The blueprint of my brain for story is that's my lead character.

Right?

This is great, this is uncomfortable, right?

Yeah.

What about it? is uncomfortable.

I could guess.

Well, first of all, I'm not.

Yeah, yeah.

I like being private, I like the story, being someone else, I don't like the idea of me being the main character. But I also have a theoretical belief. I understand what you're saying, but you're joining me, not in being myself, you're joining me as the viewer.

If I had used the word guide instead of hero, would that be less?

I don't know.

It probably feels like you're dishonoring.

Yeah.

By claiming to be the hero of it.

Yeah, I'm channeling what I've learned to do.

And you are, and I would feel that exact same way.

Yeah.

I would think, No, no, no, no, no, don't suggest I'm the lead of a show.

I think you're just saying, though, it's human curiosity that takes over a little bit. Because we are learning so much about the couples, we know everything about these couples.

And you're learning how to think like an analyst.

Exactly, and then I think human curiosity starts coming into play, where you do start thinking, like, what's Orna's deal?

But I think that curiosity goes down.

Mostly, when we talk about it, I don't know if it's come back to. we talk about couple therapy all the time.

On the show, Yes.

Multiple first dates that I bring it up like, have you watched this? you should watch this, it's a prerequisite. Almost, yeah.

I'm talking about this vague concept of story. I'm acutely aware of story and the power of story and what we do, and the format we somehow innately acquire. Just we're born with right archetypes and story, we want story.

We understand the world through story. I mean, even my dog does, honestly, I think a mammal does.

I would agree.

Like, Wait, you did this, why? Where are we going right? There's an arc here.

It's how we're computing this reality we're in. See multiple things are happening at once is really what it is. It's like you're having your real life experience, the couples are having their very real experience and they are immediate story where we meet them.

So the Achilles heel with Kazimar and Alexis you were referring to, like my savior fantasy.

Yes, which, by the way, I was so glad you labeled it that, because I suffer from that as well. If I feel like there's someone to be protected, I'm there. So you have a touch of that. I guess, Yeah, yeah.

I mean, you picked the right touch, you picked the right profession for it.

Right, but I can't imagine it's universal among psychoanalysts.

Yeah, I think it is you do. I mean, not everyone.

I could see someone actually having just an innate desire to solve problems. How about that? And in that case, it's maybe they don't even have that hero complex part of it.

Those probably will go more towards CBT.

Ah, interesting.

Manual driven, evidence-based, you do a, b happens.

A little more mechanical. Yeah, okay, that makes sense.

I hope I'm not offending anyone.

No, I don't think so.

I said, mechanical, you didn't, maybe I offended somebody. So we're almost to the show. Which is, you have a practice, you've had it for years, you also teach at NYU. Had you been aware of mating in captivity?

Yes, of the book.

And the podcast?

Yeah, her podcast has a different name.

It might have a different name.

Oh, I think you're right.

It has a different name, but yeah, Esther Perel.

We've interviewed her a couple of times, I adore her to no end.

Awesome.

Where should we begin?

Where should we begin?

Where should we begin? Yeah.

I heard that I love it in the same way I love couples therapy. In a weird way. I'm gonna compare it to A.A, which is this person has a very similar problem. I have and I'm hearing them out loud talk about it, but I'm not getting defensive because it's not aimed at me.

That's a good way of thinking of one of the reasons this works.

I think that's why the show is. We'll get to why. It's so comforting, but I'm just curious, I have to imagine there were reservations. And is this something that should be consumed by people, or should this remain private?

Big reservations. First of all, as you know, generally when you do therapy, there's this really, really intense firewall of confidentiality. I never talk to people about my patients ever. It's really sacred and the feeling is that without that frame, it's not gonna work.

A lot are they gonna be honest? I mean, that's a huge-.

Is it gonna work? Are they gonna be honest?

Is it just gonna be fake?

There were many reservations. And then not to mention that, people told me, This is absolutely gonna ruin your career. Oh shoot, wow, you're gonna have a good career. What are you doing?

Well, I would argue what happens in there often happens in this room. Which is, people have an awareness that this will ultimately land in millions of people's laps. But also they forget that regularly, and I forget that.

I'm forgetting that right now. Yeah, totally.

It's easy. Yeah, yeah, seems almost impossible, but then when you're experiencing it, you're like, Oh, no, it is quite possible. But you originally were just coming on as an advisor. Is that accurate?

Yes, my first degree I did in film, and I was like, Oh, this sounds like a really interesting project. But I'm worried because they're gonna find someone who's gonna botch the job and they're gonna portray the therapist as this narcissistic person. And I'm like, Oh my God, let me see if I can influence how they're gonna do it.

Oh, interesting, so it kind of started as an effort for you to protect.

Just the field.

The field itself.

And then I started talking with Elise and with Josh, the directors, and they're just such amazing people, their ethics, their creativity, the way they think of documentary. And we talked so much about the parallels between, like, documentary, filmmaking and psychoanalysis, and probably also what you do here. There are many, many parallels. And it just became suddenly a really exciting project.

And it required a lot of trust from you. Because I will say I give them an a plus on not being ever exploitative.

They're amazing.

Which is very, very hard to do. It's not an easy task, you could even set out with great intentions, but that doesn't mean it's not. It's so clean.

We've been doing this for years now. I've witnessed them in certain very key moments when there's, let's say, a certain kind of pressure from the network. Or test. Moments where it was like, are they gonna go for commercial or are they gonna go for ethics? and they always went for ethics? Wow, always.

Because I would guess, and I didn't even know this until I started researching you, but that you do do. More than the couples we see, there are other couples that we don't follow them, right? And I would imagine in that situation, there were some that would be quote great for TV.

Do people apply?

They have a whole recruiting, casting arm, they interview thousands and thousands of couples.

I imagine every single couple across all seasons has been incredible.

Incredible.

Even though there's issues that span across every single couple, they're all so specifically juicy. Oh, it's so good.

And very lovable people.

Yes, you love every single one, even at first, sometimes you don't.

Right, I think that's part of the gift of the show is that you can see how you can even feel repulsed by someone. But if you really take the time to listen, you're gonna love them.

All right, so now we're at the show and I have now a million questions. There's just a lot of things you exhibit that I really have a hard time believing someone's capable of it. So okay, and we will not name names. We've had to edit stuff out when we talk about the show.

We talked about one person and we had to cut it because Dax might get sued. Would we if we said something disparaging about...?

Well, I was specifically labeling somebody with a condition I think that could be liable because that could impact their....

This is someone from our show.

Yeah, previous season. And that could obviously impact someone's employment and everything else. We can do this without making it specific to anyone. It starts with a question of, maybe do you even believe in certain labels? Because the thing I'm astounded by with you is I will often watch someone in the couple's dynamic and I will say, Oh, this person's clearly a narcissist.

I have a complex response to that. I think. Diagnostic labels are sometimes good as quick shortcuts to capture a bunch of information, but they always leave out a huge amount of who the person is. And similar to what we were saying earlier about systems, that systems can call out certain qualities in people. You can be in a certain environment that will, let's say, call out for a lot of narcissism, and you can be in a different kind of environment that is very safe or supportive. And somebody that you thought was really a terrible malignant narcissist suddenly becomes completely capable of caring and seeing another person.

Okay, right, so there's really deep belief in the system.

But it's also deep belief in humanity. We're all very complex and we're capable of a lot, a lot of different ways we can all be. You're telling me a little bit you've been a thief, you've been an addict, you've been this, you've been that, and now you're like,-.

A dad.

A dad. And, like, you know, full of goodwill, I can feel it.

Oh, if I were AI and I was a probabilistic predictor, yeah, I'm not in any of these situations. But do you at all have to fight?-?

The inclination to diagnose, I don't have to fight it, I just know I can diagnose. I've been a diagnostician earlier in life. That's how I got myself through grad school.

Another way I might label what I think I observe is like, you have a kind of endless optimism, I do.

I have really strong optimism. I'm romantic, I believe in a better world. Despite what's happening right now, I believe Israel and Palestine can find a way.

Well, you have to.

You have to.

You can work backwards.

I'm going to pee my pants. Oh, wonderful.

This never happens.

This is like the second time this has happened in six years.

Six and a half years. Okay, I'll be right back, goodbye, I'll go too.