Couples Therapy’s Orna Guralnik and former participant Christine have very different views on Israel and Palestine. Could they try to understand one another without the conversation breaking down?
Orna Guralnik and Christine met on the docuseries Couples Therapy in 2022. During filming, they respectively realised that while they both live in New York, Orna, the programme’s couples therapist, is Israeli, and Christine, who participated in the series with her partner, is Palestinian. They kept in touch after the show ended, and since 7 October, they have spent more than 30 hours, on video calls and in person, discussing their views and applying some of the frameworks of couples therapy to engage with difficult subjects without the conversation breaking down. In the process, they have also developed a friendship. This conversation is drawn from two of these exchanges, recorded in January 2024.
‘Are you a Zionist?’
Christine: When I discovered you were Israeli while we were shooting the first episode of Couples Therapy – even though I was caught off guard and pretended I already knew – I wasn’t sure if we should continue. I was worried that I was going to have an Israeli therapist pathologise the trauma I experienced at the hands of her state.
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