Latest / The Trauma Therapist / Episode 768: Couples Therapy with Dr. Orna Guralnik

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Episode 768: Couples Therapy with Dr. Orna Guralnik · The Trauma Therapist

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Or welcome back to the Trauma Therapist Podcast. My name is Gamiferson. My
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mission is to help trauma therapist be their incredible selves, to be human,
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to be real, not just a clinician. I'm a big believer in who
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we are is more important than what we know, and this requires cultivating authenticity,
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genuineness, and vulnerability, and that requires intention. Can learn more about
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my courses and workshops by going to the Trauma Therapist project dot com. That's
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the Trauma Therapist Project dot com. Let's get started, all right, So
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five four, three, two and one, our folks, welcome back to
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the podcast. Very excited to have us. My guest today, doctor Orna
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Garalnick. Auna, welcome, Thank you guy, thank you for inviting me.
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You're welcome. So. Doctor Orna Geralnick is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst
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sing in New York City. She's on faculty at the National Institute for the
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Psychotherapies in New York City, where she teaches courses on the transgenerational transmission of
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trauma, social politics, ideology and psychoanalysis, and on dissociation. Currently,
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doctor Reland lectures and publishers on the topics of couple's treatment and culture, association
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and depersonalization, as well as culture and psychoanalysis. She's also the therapist on
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the Showtime documentary series Couples Therapy. Orna. Welcome to the podcast. Thank
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you so before we get going, share with our listeners where you're from originally
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and where you are currently. I'm actually originally from the US, but I
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spent like an important part of my life in Israel as a young person,
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teenager, and did my first degree in Israel, did the Army in Israel,
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and moved back to the States for grad school and state here. Ever
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since grad school psychoanalytic train in the rest. How did look? I want
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to kind of start and ask you about your interest in mental health and psychoanalysis
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in particular. How did this start for you? It's one of those questions
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that you know, every few years you have a different understanding of it,
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Like you go back and you're like, oh, actually, I think it
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really started then. It really was that it was that book I read,
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or it was like But the simple answer is I was in therapy as a
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teenager. My parents kind of pushed me into therapy. I had no interest
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in it, and first of all, the therapy itself the person I worked
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with a therapy really changed my life in kind of a sound way. And
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then I started doing a lot of reading at the time, from like Freud
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to Ared Laying, and just that whole language opened up such a door for
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me to understand what's going on around me that it changed my life in many
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different ways. And that's when I kind of got the first bug. And
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I wasn't sure. I mean, I did other things. I dabbled in
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the arts and other things. So what age are we talking now at this
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point? This was as a teenager, okay, And then did my first
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degree in film and did other things, but I kept kind of gravitating back.
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I started a clinical psych program in Israel, and then I was like,
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no, actually, I don't really want to be a clinician, left
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it for a while, and then came back and finally I was like,
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you know what, I think this is my calling. Well, so it
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took me a while, but a lot of it had to do with my
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own experience of both being in therapy and reading and kind of using that language
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to understand the world around me. Reading your biography, obviously there's a strong
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interest in trauma, trans generational trauma, How did that show up for you?
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How did you experience that, How did that impact your decision to go
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forward into becoming a therapist psychoanalyst. Well, you know, I think part
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of it had to do both with moving between two different cultures, between the
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United States and Israel and back to the United States, and I lived in
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a couple of other places in the world, and also growing up to parents
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who's I mean, my parents are Israeli but moved left Israel and then came
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back to Israel, and their parents were in Europe and left because of the
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war to Israel. So there was a lot of both trauma but also a
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lot of major cultural shifts in our intergenerational history of my family and lots of
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other Jewish and Israeli families. And then my own moves kind of primed me
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to, first of all, the to kind of have an interest and almost
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like a visceral awareness of how culture really shapes the way one thinks, and
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how switching between cultures opens your mind to the way that were captured by a
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particular collective, by a particular history, including its traumas. There were many
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things about my own parents that I didn't really understand until I put it in
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the context of intergener rational transmission of history trauma. And when you decided to
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move forward with your studies in psychoanalysis, well, let's talk about that.
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How did that come about? Okay? I want to because a lot of
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people don't necessarily go into psychoanalysis. They become quote unquote therapists of a different
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kind. Why psychoanalysis for you? What was so potent there? Right?
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I was? I always thought, I mean since, I mean since my
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own therapeutic journey. I mean, the person I worked with was psychoanalytically oriented,
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and the books I gravitated towards were psychoanalytic. But I had when I
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finished grad school, I got into empirical work, into research, actually research
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on trauma. And then somehow, you know, life kind of presents you
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with all sorts of things. I somehow got into more organization, you know,
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in business work, and did that. We had a company. I
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created a company with a few people and and immersed myself in that world kind
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of it was like New York kind of the dot com slash, full street
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romance or romance. And I was thick in that and I became after a
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while, I became frankly really alienated by that, and I was looking for
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something that will be like the true counterbalance to that. I was going to
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say, as you were talking, I was thinking, it's almost like diametrically
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opposite. Yeah. I was just like, give me the thing that's gonna
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like really cure me of the toxic toxic values I've been ingesting and a way
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out of that, and went back to psychoanalysis, and it did it.
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It's so interesting. I mean, how did let's talk about the show here?
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How did this come about for you? The show? Yeah, the
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show was a a total fluke out of left field. Someone from my institute
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from NYU post Doc connected me to the directors, and since I had like
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my first degree was in film, I thought, oh, I talked to
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them and maybe consult to them. And actually one of the directors just sent
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me the video of our first conversation when we just talked on zoom and we
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just really hit it off. We had this like really amazing conversation about psycho
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analysis and documentary film and the parallels between them, and it just became like
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this incredible meeting of minds, and very quickly I became quite involved with them,
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and they were like can you please why don't you try to be the
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therapist on the show. And I'm like, what are you talking about.
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I can't function in front of a camera. I've got no dramatic bone in
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me. And they were like, we're documentarians, just try and I did.
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I just did a session, like a test session, in front of
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the cameras, and I was just like, Oh, it's sort of the
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same as being in my office. We just do our work and I don't
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know, we just started working from there. And how many years ago is
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that? That was six years ago? It was six years ago. So
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look, let me just say, when I first started watching this show,
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I mean, there's something you just have, this like presence and groundedness about
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you that seems to cut through not just as a therapist but the culture that
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we're living in right now. It's just so ah, I don't know,
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maybe direct, open, honest, reflective that just how long did it take
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for you to develop that? Obviously you've been doing this for a while.
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Well, first of all, thank you, thank you for describing it that
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way. That's nice to hear. First of all, it's not it's really
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not just me. I mean, I'm the face there, but it's really
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this team, the people I'm working with, they all have this quality.
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They're really documentarians. They came from politics, and the feeling with this group
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of people is a real search for truth, an interest in truth, the
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curiosity about truth, and a lot of respect for like human dignity. They're
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just they really have their eye on the ball of what matters, and they
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don't they don't get distracted by bullshit. They they're really good people. So
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it's not just me, it's sort of the the whole team is sort of
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sitting there and like, Okay, what matters and what matters right now in
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this culture, in this moment, choice of couples, in the support for
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me and working with the couples. It's it's really an incredible team. It's
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it's really kind of a Milia treatment. All right, let's just pause here
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for a second to thank our sponsors. All Right, we are back.
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So the whole thing is very interesting. I mean to obviously there's there's limited
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confidentiality, no confident no confidentiality, So to how did how are you doing
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this? Is this in providing therapy psychoanalysis. They're not patients right there,
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You're considered an actor, right there there. I know, it's a very
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complicated tension and it's not a simple one, and it's not you know,
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I can't shrug it off and say, oh, no big deal. It's
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complicated to be doing something that is therapy adjacent without confidentiality. I mean the
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whole. I mean, confidentiality is like our main frame, our main tool.
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You know, when we contract with our patients, were like, it's
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between us here in this room, and unless you're about to kill yourself or
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somebody else, we will never ever disclose what happened here, and that's what
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creates safety, and here all of that is gone. So in a certain
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way, it's like bizarre that it even works, but I guess certain things
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kind of compensate for it. But the contract between the participants in me is
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not a therapist patient contract. It's they're participating in a documentary. So by
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contract, we're not patient therapist, were participant and me. But at the
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same time you are providing therapy. Yeah, it's just officially, it's not
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I'm using the tools of an analyst and a couple's therapist and a systems therapist.
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It's just the contract between us is officially not a therapy contract, but
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you know they're not paying me. It's it's it's no confidentiality. There are
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all sorts of aspects of the frame that are removed and instead there's something else.
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There are other people witnessing it all along. It's going to be edited.
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They're going to see it. It's anyone's going to see it, right
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right. And obviously what's also interesting is when they cut to you and you're
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you're different groups. You're they're seeing they're seeing that, Andy. But first
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I want to go back because when I when I talked about your presence,
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you know, you said, well, it's a group effort. It's kind
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of like you know, Tom Brady's saying, well, it's the whole team
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type thing. But you have a particular way about you. How did you
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develop that? You know that just doesn't come about, you know, I
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didn't. The way I work or the way I interact or the way I
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am on camera is not different from the way I am and the rest of
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my life. I mean, that's been a relief for me, a relief
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for my patients, a relief for my friends and family to see that I'm
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the same person. And I think the quality that probably works for this series
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is kind of a cross cultural thing. It's the fact that I'm kind of
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a this hybrid between like Israeli, American and some other influences there. So
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you know, when you're hybrid, you're both and which gives you. I
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think it gives me some It's not only me, it's people that have lived
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in different cultures. It gives you you're never completely embedded in one perspective,
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and there's a certain freedom in that, and a certain like you never totally
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drink the kool aid of any one particular domain, and there's freedom in that,
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and it gives you, I guess, a certain kind of directness or
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maybe I don't know something about that I think works for people. Yeah,
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yeah, I appreciate you saying that. I mean, it's a constellation of
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these qualities. And the timing, for example, you know, if we
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could you know, during this last season, there was one couple and the
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gentleman you were having a kind of at tension with. But it was interesting
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to see how you work with that, and and you moved into it in
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such a way that I felt was really refreshing. We don't see a lot
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of it in our world, in our life, and and it was done
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in such a compassionate way. Are you talking about Sean and Erica? Yeah?
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Yeah, that was hard. Yeah, we saw that and it it
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just made me feel like that kind of directness that walking into the fire,
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if you will breathe the life I think into who we are and how we
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interact with people, that comes about in my mind, I mean from a
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certain experience and like you said, being able to straddle these different worlds,
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it kind of gives you what a pass in a way or not even a
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past, but how did you approach that? Did a lot of thought go
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into that? There's a lot of thinking going into this. Where is there
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a lot of self trust and no, definitely a lot of thought and conversations
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both with my team and with my peers. You know that Again, I'm
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going to go back to my directors and my team, which is after every
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session, we would sit and talk and I would share with them, you
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know, both thoughts about the process and my own kind of transference and how
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I'm thinking about this, and and they were like, look, the struggle
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you're going through is important for the audience. This is not just your struggle.
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This is information that would be useful for the audience for anyone who struggles
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with this, anyone who's in interaction with someone that they can't empathize with or
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they find their language doesn't work with that person, Like, this is a
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struggle worth sitting with and let us be part of it. And we're not
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gonna we're supporting you and whatever you need, but let us be part of
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it, which is the stance they had all along with any difficulty that came
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up or ethical questions that came up, they were like, let us sit
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with you and struggle with you. This is going to be important for the
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audience. We don't need you to give us something pretty. Just let us
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be with you, right, Just trust that. I do trust that that's
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what we all really ultimately need. We don't need a beautiful picture. We
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need to know. How do you try to be honest with what's going on?
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So how did your interest in couples therapy bloom? That's funny? I
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uh, I often have said that it started with my parents. They were
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my first couple, and they agree with me. They still I mean,
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my dad passed this last year. He died a year ago, but he
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till them. The day he died, he was just like, can you
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give us a little more therapy? We could use a little more. So
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I think it started there. Probably for many couple's therapists and therapists in general,
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they start by dealing with the people they're closest to, their parents.
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But I also think working with groups and with systems, and then having interest
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in politics and how political systems kind of resolve difference is you know, you
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take that interest and then you it's very relevant to couples and talk about couples
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as a mini political system. So, you know, if I have a
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hope that you know, Republicans and Democrats can figure out their differences, or
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Israelis and Palestinians should like be able to resolve their impasse, surely I can
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find a way to work with a couple. It's very interesting that you mentioned
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that because of those issues certainly come up in this last season here, and
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you know, I'm thinking, no, the two women that couple and then
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the other couple who were almost battling in the politics of what relationships are you
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know, by Christian Rock, it's interesting to see you hear you talk about
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how this show and I'm curious about you know, you had such strong feelings
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when you were working with those two women, obviously there were a lot of
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issues coming up. Can you talk just a little bit about that. Oh,
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they were just so so moving and beautiful to work with. Painful,
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very painful, but I mean, in addition to them being each as a
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person just a lovely person and very honest and sensitive and verbal and like going
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willing to put themselves out there, really was like full honesty. I mean,
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it was really incredible to work with these women. But then it also
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had this other layer of Christine being Palestinian, you know, and my people
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Israeli's kind of having like severely traumatized her people, and our attempt to kind
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of talk through that, which continued after the show also, and then Nadine
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being half Lebanese, you know, my brother went to Lebanon in a tank.
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Just that history between us and our willingness to hold it in mind and
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talk to each other and keep working through that was another layer of what it
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means to try to sit with difference and find a way to have respect and
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honor each other's dignity and acknowledge wrongdoings. It was like very layered and deeply
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personally important for me to be able to sit with them and hold to that.
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I was it was beautiful to see. I mean, are you conscious
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of your role like as a psycho psychoanalyst and then as a actor in a
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documentary? I mean, are the different hats you have to wear? Because
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I'm curious if this wasn't a documentary, would there be have been a different
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interaction, different sharing on your part. It's at all. It's a good
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question both, And in many ways I function the way i'd function in my
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private practice. I mean, I have my ways of thinking that are analytic
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and my own and just my own personality and history and clinical experience. But
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then I also do have a certain kind of responsibility to both the filmmakers and
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the audience in mind, both in terms of there are certain things that I
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will not ask the participants to talk about because I don't I think that will
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put them in a bad situation. Like I won't ask them to talk about
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their kids. There's certain certain things that I won't ask them to talk about.
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And then there's a way in which I'm on some level it's not top
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of mind, but in the back of my mind, I'm aware of the
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fact that we're also speaking for and two a larger public. So there's always
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some kind of political hope in the back of my mind that we're doing something
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to heal the collective. I mean, it might be kind of omnipotent in
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grandiose, but I think we all have that in mind. Even the participants
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I know, have that in mind. Like you know, when we had
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like someone who was struggling with their alcoholism, they had in the back of
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their mind that it's not just them, as other people with that history that
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are hopefully going to benefit from their honesty. And I think everyone had that
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in mind, that it's like that there's some level of like communal service in
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doing this. Yeah, well, it certainly comes across. I mean,
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as you were talking, was just seeking all the different elements that go into
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the show, and they form or are continuing to form, this beautiful solar
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system that's working. You know, it's really exciting. Is there going to
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be a next season? I'm officially not supposed to say, but yes,
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there's going to be more seasons. Yes, yes, Well or it's a
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pleasure having you on here. I don't want to take too much of your
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time, but my gosh, what an honor to meet you and to talk
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to you and just so appreciate you and how you work. I mean,
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from the first time I was like watching it was like wow, you know,
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just the way you cut through and it doesn't even have to be with
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language but a gesture and an acknowledgment and a witnessing you know, so we
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need this. So I'll end with that, Yeah, appreciate it. Where
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can people how can people learn about the show? Just go to showtime or
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what the show is on showtime slash now it's paramount plus. Yeah, you
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can sign up or sign up Yeah, okay, all right, we'll have
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that link to here at the shows page at the Trauma Diapers podcast dot com
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or the awesome thank you so much, Thank you so much,