What Is a Paradoxical Intervention?

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A paradoxical intervention is when you instruct a person to do exactly the opposite of what you ultimately think is going to happen. For example, if you feel compelled to yell at your wife or putting her shoes in the wrong place,you feel compelled to do that. With the idea that you're then kind of you're scrambling the system and other things kind of get evoked in them, you break them out of certain patterns. And in a way you allow for the opposite to emerge.

1. What we are really fighting about when we’re fighting about the dishwasher.

2. We can stop asking whether what’s missing is a “want” or a “need” – and the question to ask instead.

3. How to use what most frustrates you about your partner to bring you closer.

4. How to start thinking of our partnerships as our own mini political systems.

5. What to do if your partner won’t go to therapy, or if you’re feeling invisible in your relationship.

About Dr. Guralnik:

Dr. Orna Guralnik is a psychoanalyst and writer, who serves on the faculty of NYU PostDoc, National Institute for the Psychotherapies, the Stephen Mitchel Center, and the editorial boards of Psychoanalytic Dialogues and Studies in Gender & Sexuality. Her writing centers on the intersection of psychoanalysis, dissociation, and cultural studies. She has completed the filming of four seasons of the Docu-series Couples Therapy, airing on Showtime.

TW: @DrGuralnik

IG: @ornaguralnik

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