Couples Therapy - Season 1

The series, created by the team behind the documentary Weiner, is ostensibly about untangling romantic relationships, but its lessons hold up whether or not you have a mate.

"Couples Therapy" is much better when the couch in question is a neutral and therapeutic space, rather than the well-worn, upholstered lump where we've spent the past 10 months slowly losing our grip.

Couples Therapy also delivers on a fantasy familiar to anyone who's been in therapy of any kind, joint or solo, following Guralnik out of her own workplace and into that of her clinical adviser, Dr. Virginia Goldner.

Couples Therapy breaks new ground with its camera, capturing the stalemates and breakthroughs in shifting gazes, unsaid interjections, raised eyebrows.

And, yes, while a show like this smacks of voyeurism, its view into the therapy processes of couples in counseling with Dr. Orna Guralnik over six months is instructive as opposed to exploitative.

The special uses four couples to offer surprisingly insightful generalizations about human relationships: our difficulty articulating our vulnerabilities, and our defensiveness or resistance when hearing them expressed by others.

While the Showtime series may inspire some visits to couples' therapists offices, I think it will mostly help destigmatize a process that usually occurs behind closed doors.

Sometimes you are tempted to laugh at the show's participants, as in the above example, but then you realize that these are just normal people exposing their most intimate thoughts.

Guralnik is a picture of cool, even when a patient is staring her down and doubting her magnanimousness. If she's not magnanimous, she's at least remarkably wise, routinely saying things that viewers may find useful

The reveals are somewhat slow, something anyone who's been through therapy themselves will not find surprising - but the breakthroughs are illuminating.

Couples Therapy is so real and raw, you can't help but watch.