CNBC: TV couple's therapist Dr Orna Guralnik reveals the one conversation couples should avoid

On her captivating show Couple’s Therapy, Orna Guralnik attempts to ferry partnerships through conflict to resolution.

Sometimes that means finding common ground. Other times it means dissolving the relationship.

Dr Guralnik, who is a New York-based clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst, says one of the most crucial parts of her job is helping people better communicate and listen, two acts that should go hand-in-hand but can often distract from one another.

There is one specific conversation Dr Guralnik says “people spend so much time” on but is never productive: “When people approach a conversation with the idea that what they need to do is convince their partner that what they are saying is not true, it’s going to be a bad conversation that is basically going to go nowhere.”

The difference between a ‘productive versus dead-end conversation’

It’s understandable to want your partner to perceive experiences the same way you do.

But often when we try to prove our outlook is correct, we do so at the expense of listening.

“I think conversations go well when the effort is to try to understand what is the most important thing your partner is trying to communicate to you, rather than try to prove them wrong,” Dr Guralnik says.

“I think that’s the key thing that makes a difference in a productive versus dead-end conversation.”

Fixating on disproving your partner can cause a person to say reactionary, hurtful, and ultimately unhelpful things.

“It’s discharge and retaliation, rather than conversation, and a lot of it is noise, and a lot of it is confusion,” Dr Guralnik says.

“People get distracted by their own feelings and distracted by their own impulses.”

Attempting to understand how your partner arrived at their conclusion will help you emerge from conflict, rather than become more entrenched in it.

Guralnik hopes viewers of Couples Therapy are able to see this skill in action on her show, and perhaps employ it in their own relationships.

Fans repeatedly tell her, she says, that watching these intimate sessions helped them see that there is no “good” or “bad” guy.

“The more they get to know the participants, the more empathy they feel for everyone and they get a more complex view on relationship dynamics, and they stopped splitting and polarising,” she says.