Couples
On Loving Another
Coming February 2027
Falling in love changes everything. It opens us up—to hope, inspiration, and the possibility of caring deeply for another. But folded into this miracle is an unavoidable reality: Sooner or later, the central crisis of every relationship emerges—your partner is not you. What matters may not be a couple’s perfect compatibility but their capacity to tolerate difference; can they stay curious when wounded, communicate truths, and forgive across their divides? All qualities in perilously short supply in our contemporary world.
What are the forces that bring people together and then pull them apart? What does it take to choose love? In Couples, Dr. Orna Guralnik draws on decades as a psychologist, academic, and couples therapist to uncover the underlying layers of intimate relationships. Dr. Guralnik shows us that tensions over sex, money, parenting, and the division of labor are rooted in much deeper issues. In Couples, we learn a process grounded in psychoanalytic listening that allows us to break free from the
repetitive patterns we reenact with one another.
Being alongside Dr. Guralnik in actual sessions with many of her couples, we see how moving from a furious state of blame to a place of empathy requires venturing into the unconscious—our childhoods, traumas, and the ways in which we are held hostage by deeper forces of culture and ideology. Following this path, we stand to gain not only a deeper bond with our partner but also the capacity to see the world through the eyes of
another. The work we do in our most intimate relationships can reverberate far beyond them, joining the forces that mend this troubled world.
Riveting and revolutionary, Couples shows that the conflict and redemption inherent in relationships can be among the most valuable opportunities of our lives.
Pre-order
reviews
Title
publication - date
Title
publication - date
Title
publication - date
Title
publication - date
Couples
On Loving Another
Coming February 2027
purchase
reviews
Title
publication - date
Title
publication - date
Title
publication - date
Title
publication - date
Falling in love changes everything. It opens us up—to hope, inspiration, and the possibility of caring deeply for another. But folded into this miracle is an unavoidable reality: Sooner or later, the central crisis of every relationship emerges—your partner is
not you. What matters may not be a couple’s perfect compatibility but their capacity to tolerate difference; can they stay curious when wounded, communicate truths, and
forgive across their divides? All qualities in perilously short supply in our contemporary world.
What are the forces that bring people together and then pull them apart? What does it take to choose love? In Couples, Dr. Orna Guralnik draws on decades as a psychologist, academic, and couples therapist to uncover the underlying layers of intimate relationships. Dr. Guralnik shows us that tensions over sex, money, parenting, and the division of labor are rooted in much deeper issues. In Couples, we learn a process grounded in psychoanalytic listening that allows us to break free from the
repetitive patterns we reenact with one another.
Being alongside Dr. Guralnik in actual sessions with many of her couples, we see how moving from a furious state of blame to a place of empathy requires venturing into the unconscious—our childhoods, traumas, and the ways in which we are held hostage by deeper forces of culture and ideology. Following this path, we stand to gain not only a deeper bond with our partner but also the capacity to see the world through the eyes of another. The work we do in our most intimate relationships can reverberate far beyond them, joining the forces that mend this troubled world.
Riveting and revolutionary, Couples shows that the conflict and redemption inherent in relationships can be among the most valuable opportunities of our lives.
Pre-order
reviews
Title
publication - date
Title
publication - date
Title
publication - date
Title
publication - date
upcoming appearances
Title location
date time
Title location
date time
Title location
date time
Title location
date time
purchase
reviews
Title
publication - date
Title
publication - date
Title
publication - date
Title
publication - date
purchase
reviews
Title
publication - date
Title
publication - date
Title
publication - date
Title
publication - date
reviews
Title
publication - date
Title
publication - date
Title
publication - date
Title
publication - date
Coupling is knit by love and desire, just as love and desire unravel through hostilities, disappointments, socio-political strife, and lingering traumas. No one shows us how to hold love and trouble in mind better than Orna Guralnik. Her extraordinary devotion – alone - is a masterclass. Couples is destined to become a classic. It reads like a set of heartfelt short stories. You will look for Couples on a potential partner’s bedside table. If you don’t see it there, you’ll know to head for the door.
Ken Corbett
Author of Boyhoods and A Murder Over a Girl
Orna Guralnik’s Couples arrives like a godsend into a world strangely saturated with both ‘therapy speak’ and growing feelings of disconnection and dissatisfaction. By drawing on multiple models and methods at once – as well as on riveting real-life examples – Guralnik offers us a read that feels omnivorous, lucid, and most of all, supremely helpful (I couldn’t stop highlighting!). A must-read for those of us struggling to ‘land together on earth’ and love one another - which is to say, all of us.
Maggie Nelson
author of Bluets and The Argonauts
As a Buddhist teacher once confided to me years ago, the secret to happiness in a long term relationship is ‘letting go even when you know you’re right.’ Orna Guralnik’s invaluable book shows us how. Many couples will be grateful for the help.
Mark Epstein, MD
Author of Going to Pieces without Falling Apart and The Zen of Therapy
Orna Guralnik’s Couples is a ravishing, unrestrained journey to the very heart of love. She moves effortlessly from the down-and-dirty traumas of daily relationships to Freud and Winnicott, to Hegel, Proust, and beyond. She shows us not only that it’s possible to walk a line between compassion and laser-eyed clarity, but that the line often doesn’t exist at all. Couples should be required reading for everyone who’s been in love, who’s in love now, or who hopes to fall in love. It should, in brief, be required reading for every human being on the planet.
Michael Cunningham
Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hours
This is an outstandingly good book taking us from understanding couples to trying to heal societies. Orna writes so well about these dilemmas and frozen conflicts as she points us towards compassion, connection and acceptance of ourselves and of our fellow humans.
Susie Orbach
Author of In Therapy and Fat is a Feminist Issue
For a book called Couples, this is ultimately a book about the self. Orna Guralnik shows us how our most intimate relationships become the place where we encounter not only another person, but ourselves—and how the real challenge is learning to see the person we love clearly, beyond the distortions of our own histories, defenses, and fears. With extraordinary intelligence, compassion, and psychological depth, Guralnik reveals how love can become a path toward greater self-knowledge, empathy, and connection.
Lori Gottlieb
Bestselling author of
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
Interview 2
Location
Date
