On living vicariously
Or: Couples Therapy is still a reality television show
I recently tried to explain Couples Therapy (the fourth season of which I was in the process of consuming mostly in a single sitting) to a friend who had never heard of it before. And the defensive attitude I brought to that explanation surprised and amused me in pretty equal measure.
Words like “documentary series” and “solid therapeutic practice” and “delicate and respectful approach” were at the core of my explanation. “Reality television show that I’m eating up with a big spoon and only medium-kind eye” were not.
Why?
Couples Therapy is a Showtime series that premiered in 2019. It shows therapy sessions with real couples—three or four per season—on their therapeutic journey with Dr. Orna Guralnik, a clinical psychotherapist working in New York. She and the producers are on what seems to be a sincere quest to genuinely show the therapeutic process—as it is, not hyped up for television-friendly drama. The couples never interact with producers and crew, just with Guralnik. All cameras in the session and waiting room are hidden behind one-way mirrors, so that couples were (hopefully) able to forget they were there and present as closely to their authentic selves as possible. The session room is set up to closely resemble Guralnik’s own practice—including the distance between her chair and the couch where couples sit.
Besides Guralnik, viewers see her clinical advisor, Virginia Goldner, and a peer advisory group. They discuss the cases, provide insights, and challenge Guralnik on her inherent biases and thought patterns.
My point is: it’s a far cry from The Bachelor.
I’m drawn to the show for lots of reasons, but a primary one is the high quality therapeutic work going on. I’m sure I couldn’t afford her (if IMDb reports are correct, she charges $700 USD per hour in her private practice), but if I found myself in New York and in a tough spot with my partner, I would be thrilled to bring our troubles to Guralnik. She is warm but measured, listens but challenges, provides both space for personal reflection and also regular doses of serious insight into people’s individual and shared patterns. Watching the show is not completely dissimilar to attending therapy sessions in real life—we are all as much the same as we are different, and there have been lots of times watching the show when I’ve had my own lightbulb moments—realizing something about myself and my history of interacting with sexual and romantic partners. Whether watching the show alone or with someone, I will often pause and say out loud, “You know, that’s actually very interesting,” and then go on a long tangent about how it fits in with my own life, and how it shows me ways I might want to approach my own life differently.
But also.
Some of these people.
I mean.
For the most part we’re primed to watch the show’s participants with kind eyes. No one is born difficult to get along with. We’re all just little balls of nature and nurture smashed together, wandering around doing our best. I have cried over people’s growth, and cheered when they make progress that feels sustainably good. But still. There’s always one person in each season that—even as I learn more about them and how they came to be this way and all the ways they’re doing what amounts to their version of their best—I struggle to love. I have had little to no use for Josh, Mau, Mihal, and Ping. And oh boy do I enjoy having little to no use for them. Until at least halfway through each season, when inevitably they reveal something about themselves that makes them blossom in my understanding of them - from two to three dimensions in one fell swoop (usually childhood trauma of some kind).
Still, it’s a little unnerving to find myself yelling at someone who’s engaging with the therapeutic process, even if I’m yelling during the first couple of episodes when they seem like true dirtbags. I’m sure it has something to do with that universality of experiences again - I yell at Mau because I have a long history of trying to explain myself to men who Simply Aren’t Listening and I never managed to work the knowing smirks off their faces so his drives me crazy. But it’s also because, however carefully crafted, this is still a reality television show.
And I do think that the basis of most of the enjoyment of reality television is that we see ourselves reflected in the participants—their reality about 10% to the left or right of our reality, just enough that we can pretend we’re mad at Kourtney instead of at our own sister we feel abandoned us. And these Almost Us-es can be our life decision guinea pigs, as well as our ciphers. Admittedly, usually the lessons feel unnecessary. Like, I’m pretty sure I could work out for myself that it would be a bad idea to go with my partner to an island where we would be separated for an extended period of time and I would go into a house full of beautiful shirtless men and he would go into a house full of beautiful shirtless women and the only times we’d see each other while we were apart was when we would be shown the most damning hot tub footage the producers could come up with (pretty sure). But it would be disingenuous of my tends-to-move-in-with-romantic-partners-in-less-than-six-months self to say that I’ve never learned anything about the wisdom of taking your time from the Bachelor franchise (even if they’re all negative reinforcements, and even if all my Bachelor content was consumed during a particularly bonkers COVID-crazy three month period that I don’t really identify with anymore [do we see how I’m trying to distance myself from it even now because in no world could I use the word “documentary” and only in the loosest sense could I say “case study”]).
Couples Therapy invites the kind of subconscious reflection that’s going on *swanlike* under the water of other reality viewing experiences to become conscious. Watching this season has double and triple confirmed that (past experimentation aside) I am not bound for a polyamorous life. It has quadruple and quintuple reminded me that I am done with men who don’t stand on solid emotional playing fields with excellent communication skills in their coping abilities tool boxes. But it’s also reminded me that I could stand to fact check some of the assumptions I make about other people’s tones, and that the reasons for any manic cleaning sessions might be even more layered than I realized.
It also - as always - made me so glad I had the childhood I had instead of the childhood most of the participants had. Goodness me.