Two Lovely Holidays and Public Couples Therapy

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PSYCHIATRIC VIEWS ON THE DAILY NEWS

Did you miss it? I did, at least in terms of these columns. Sunday August 18th was National Couples Day. Since the day is not so well known, maybe it is fine for a delayed recognition of it today.

Couples of all kinds are the essence of social psychiatry: parenting, therapeutic alliances, friendship, and intimacy, among other 1-on-1 relationships. National Couples Day, begun in 2010, tends to focus not only on romantic couples and their love, but the individuals who bring special meaning to our lives. Expressing gratitude rather than taking the other for granted helps to increase mutual satisfaction and well-being. In society this week, we are viewing a variety of important political couples during the Democratic convention.

In contrast to Valentine’s Day, National Couples Day is more about small, everyday moments essential to thriving relationships. Reflection on the relationship takes priority over gifts.

Cultures vary in how they celebrate National Couples Day. Overlapping this day is a particular Jewish holiday called Tu B’Av. Because the Jewish calendar differs from our secular one, it occurs on a different date every year, but this year serendipitously continues the secular day of love, running from the evening of August 18 to the evening of August 19. It is also much more popular in Israel than in the Diaspora. Although Tu B’Av is often thought to be the Jewish version of Valentine’s Day, it is ancient, probably going back a couple of thousand years. It is only 6 days after the Jewish lamentation day of Tisha B’Av, commemorating all the Jewish tragedies that occurred around that date. That closeness in time of the 2 days perhaps explains why forgiving, repentance, and acceptance are also emphasized on Tu B’Av.

However, whether in regard to National Couples Day and Tu B’Av, we know how hard it is to maintain thriving couples. Harmful conflict, separation, and divorce of married couples is more common than not in the United States.

Couples’ therapists know couples best, so given our increasingly self-disclosing social media culture, it seemed inevitable that couples therapy would become more public. And it has.

On July 21, 2024, the Financial Times article “Psychotherapist Esther Perel keeps going with new podcast The Arc of Love,” got its public up-to-date with this trend.¹ Starting with psychotherapist Esther Perel’s podcast “Where Should We Begin?”, confidentiality is put aside with informed consent microphones recording couples’ therapy sessions. Since then, such popular shows have gone beyond podcasts into television and other media, including other therapists like Great Britain’s Orna Guralnik, PsyD. Outside of the potential help for the couples focused upon, the education value and stigma busting must be valuable to many viewers.

There is an ancient Japanese art called Kintsugi, where broken pottery is fixed with golden lacquer. Perhaps this process is applicable to couples. The emergence of public couples therapy and the 2 special days just past should remind us how precious such relationships can be, and if cracks in them can be cemented rather than thrown away, to become even more beautiful and valuable.

Dr Moffic is an award-winning psychiatrist who specialized in the cultural and ethical aspects of psychiatry and is now in retirement and retirement as a private pro bono community psychiatrist. A prolific writer and speaker, he has done a weekday column titled “Psychiatric Views on the Daily News” and a weekly video, “Psychiatry & Society,” since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. He was chosen to receive the 2024 Abraham Halpern Humanitarian Award from the American Association for Social Psychiatry. Previously, he received the Administrative Award in 2016 from the American Psychiatric Association, the one-time designation of being a Hero of Public Psychiatry from the Speaker of the Assembly of the APA in 2002, and the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in 1991. He is an advocate and activist for mental health issues related to climate instability, physician burnout, and xenophobia. He is now editing the final book in a 4-volume series on religions and psychiatry for Springer: Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Christianity, and now The Eastern Religions, and Spirituality. He serves on the Editorial Board of Psychiatric Times.

Reference

1. Sturges F. Psychotherapist Esther Perel keeps going with new podcast The Arc of Love. Financial Times. July 22, 2024. Accessed August 20, 2024. https://www.ft.com/content/84b6f83e-e381-4740-b2ee-9a618328cd84