Dr. Orna Guralnik has a front-row seat to couples’ most pressing challenges—both as a clinical psychologist in New York City and the therapist featured in the popular docuseries Couples Therapy, where she coaches partners through communication blunders, unaddressed childhood traumas, and sexual disconnection in real time. She’s been praised for her “ability to perceive the undercurrents between [couples] and her acumen in guiding them toward embracing new narratives about themselves and their relationships.
” And since the show’s debut in 2019, Guralnik has gotten countless emails from people worldwide, asking for her take on the essential foundations of successful relationships, she tells Fortune . What she often says is that, in a world progressively fueled by a drive to protect oneself, people tend to undermine the power of working with and learning from their partners. And her takeaway about what couples need to do more can be boiled down to asking one critical question more frequently.
“Go into a conversation thinking, what can I learn about my partner? ” Guralnik, recently named the chief clinical officer of OurRitual , a relationship therapy platform, tells Fortune . “There’s too much emphasis nowadays on a kind of solipsistic, self-absorbed way of approaching the world. We see that between couples.
My attitude is, it’s exactly the opposite thing we need. We need to listen better, not argue better for our own needs.” People are often preoccupied .