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How Couples Therapy Put Therapy on TV (Without Ruining the Therapy)


“Every week you’d go in knowing that there’s cameras somewhere, but three minutes into the session, you forget.”

Even aside from the strict ethical questions of medical practice, the gut-level voyeurism of watching couples discuss their sex lives, their childhoods, and their financial insecurities can trigger an icky, nauseous sense of overstepped boundaries and exploitation. Her skill and care is a massive feature of Couples Therapy, in part because she’s able to push back when necessary, but always with the clear goal of making useful connections for the participants rather than merely putting their pain on display for the cameras. “I was utterly floored,” Guralnik said, “in awe of their capacity to translate the essence of each treatment into the language of film.” That may be due to something Kriegman and Steinberg realized several months into the process of making the show: Therapy and filmmaking are a lot alike.

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