Films & Docs / Series
Couples Therapy
An American documentary television series (2019 onward) filming real couples across a twenty-week course of therapy with psychoanalyst Orna Guralnik.
Viewing note
Although this documentary series films real couples in sessions with a practicing clinician, twenty weeks of one-hour sessions are edited down into short television episodes. It is a heavily edited broadcast production with selected participants and is not representative of ordinary, unfilmed couple therapy.
Details
Title: Couples Therapy
Year: 2019
Director: Josh Kriegman, Elyse Steinberg and Eli Despres
Format: series
Country: United States
Running time: Approximately 28 minutes per episode
What the work shows
Premiering on Showtime in 2019, the series follows three to four couples per season over a twenty-week therapy programme in New York with clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst Orna Guralnik. Cameras are concealed behind one-way mirrors around the consulting room so that participants do not interact with a camera crew during sessions.
Alongside excerpts from the couple sessions, episodes show Guralnik discussing the work and her own emotional responses with clinical advisor Virginia Goldner and, in later episodes, Kirkland Vaughans.
How closely it reflects practice
The series illustrates how a relational and psychodynamic couple therapist tracks recurring interaction patterns, invites partners to hear what lies beneath anger or withdrawal, and uses clinical consultation to reflect on countertransference.
At the same time, editing compresses months of slow therapeutic work into brief sequences, and filming for television introduces conditions that do not exist in standard practice.
Consent, privacy and third parties
Broadcasting real therapy sessions on television raises substantial questions about privacy and informed consent. According to published production accounts, couples are not permitted to have in-depth on-screen discussions about their children because the children cannot consent to having their lives discussed on television. The individual participation agreements were not inspected for this entry.
Limits of this entry
Descriptions rely on published interviews and reference records rather than inspection of the broadcast episodes or participant contracts.
Sources and inspection notes
Wikipedia contributors. Couples Therapy (2019 TV series).
Supports: 2019 premiere, 20-week session structure, hidden one-way mirror camera setup, consultation with Virginia Goldner and Kirkland Vaughans, and the rule against in-depth discussions of non-consenting children.
Supports: Peer-reviewed psychoanalytic journal interview record with Orna Guralnik on the relational psychoanalytic approach depicted in the series. Bibliographic record verified through Crossref.