WATCH NOW & ON YOUR LOCAL PBS STATION — ENJOY THE SHOW
Americans have never been more connected – and more estranged – at the same time. Despite a plethora of new ways to embrace friends, an epidemic of loneliness is undermining the physical and mental health of a citizenry debilitated by inflammatory politics. Taking cues from algorithms designed to channel hate, Americans have stopped talking to each other. Instead, they launch preemptive strikes via anonymous rage tweets where the darkest impulses reign. Enough, a majority says. Polls show many want to start mending fences – but don’t know how.
This back-to basics “Common Ground” features a crash course in how to master the fine art of disagreeing agreeably — the first step to rebuilding America’s collective good.
Dr. orna guralnik
Conflict is Orna Guralnik’s calling.
As the star therapist of "Couples Therapy", the quietly radical Showtime documentary series, she has spent four seasons laying bare the rawest of human dynamics - love turning to resentment, misunderstanding hardening into silence, the slow unspooling of people trying to hold their relationships together.
The show, which films real couples over five months of therapy, has become a cultural artifact. Cameras hidden behind mirrored glass capture sessions that are by turns revelatory and devastatingly intimate, laying bare intimacies for Guralnik’s clinical eye and, often uncomfortably, for a national audience.
A clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst, Guralnik has helped pry open the sealed doors of therapy, demystifying its image as a private, even sanctimonious rite. In her view, psychoanalysis doesn’t belong on a pedestal - it belongs in public life. And since she believes that the forces shaping romantic discord - power, culture, trauma, family history - are the same as the dynamics fraying the wider social fabric, she thinks couples therapy provides tools to help repair the country’s polarization.
Born in Washington, D.C., in 1964 to Israeli parents, Guralnik was initially drawn to the arts. She studied filmmaking at Tel Aviv University and was captivated by the emotional language of storytelling. But after moving to New York in 1990, she pivoted, earning a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Yeshiva University and completing a postdoctoral fellowship at NYU. A decade of psychoanalytic training followed, deepening her interest in relational therapy and grounding her in a theory-rich, emotionally attuned approach.
She was a recalcitrant television host. When documentary filmmakers Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg approached her about filming real therapy sessions, Guralnik hesitated. But the prospect of destigmatizing psychoanalysis—and capturing its texture with honesty—won her over. Since its 2019 debut, Couples Therapy has been praised for its radical transparency and clinical rigor, with Guralnik's steady presence at its core.
Beyond the screen, Guralnik maintains a private practice in New York and teaches at NYU’s Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. She also co-founded the Center for the Study of Dissociation and Depersonalization at Mount Sinai Medical School, and her academic work continues to explore the intersections of psyche and society.
john kasich
In 2020, John R. Kasich, the former governor of Ohio and Republican presidential contender, crossed the partisan divide to speak at the Democratic National Convention, urging fellow Republicans to abandon the president.
“I’m a lifelong Republican, but that attachment holds second place to my responsibility to my country,” Kasich said in his speech. “That’s why I’ve chosen to appear at this convention. In normal times, something like this would probably never happen. But these are not normal times.”
It was vintage Kasich, a politician who was strident about the budget but somehow became a national figure for rejecting strident political partisanship. The son of a postal worker and the grandson of a coal miner, Kasich grew up in working-class McKees Rocks, Pa. His grandfather was so poor, Mr. Kasich once told New Hampshire voters, that he would bring home scraps of his lunch to share with his children.
In 1978, the 26-year-old became the second youngest person elected to the Ohio Senate and four years later unseated a Democratic incumbent to win a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. During his 18-year congressional career, he earned a reputation as a budget hawk, chairing the House Budget Committee and playing a central role in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. He also challenged defense spending, targeting programs like the B-2 bomber, and co-sponsored welfare reform legislation in 1996.
After leaving Congress in 2001, Kasich hosted a Fox News program and worked for Lehman Brothers. He returned to politics in 2010, defeating incumbent Ted Strickland to become Ohio’s governor. His tenure was marked by a blend of conservative and pragmatic policies: he implemented over $5 billion in tax cuts, privatized parts of the state’s economic development efforts, and controversially attempted to limit collective bargaining rights for public employees—a move later overturned by voters.
In a nuanced approach to governing that often placed him at odds with his party’s base, Kasich cited moral imperatives to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act and invested in addiction treatment and criminal justice reform. In another example of what often was seen as his centrist approach to some of the most polarizing issues, he signed multiple abortion restrictions into law but vetoed a six-week abortion ban. In the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, Kasich positioned himself as a middle-of-the-road alternative, emphasizing unity and experience. He won his home state of Ohio but failed to gain broader traction, ultimately suspending his campaign without endorsing Donald Trump.
Since leaving office in 2019, Kasich has remained a vocal commentator, serving as an analyst for CNN and NBC News.He continues to advocate for bipartisan solutions and civility in politics, embodying a brand of conservatism that seeks common ground over polarization.
Mónica Guzmán
Mónica Guzmán is a journalist, author, and bridge-builder committed to helping people see the world more clearly by seeing each other more fully. The proud daughter of Mexican immigrants—and the “liberal daughter of conservative parents”—she has spent her career navigating political and cultural divides, turning curiosity into a powerful tool for connection in an era of division.
As the Senior Fellow for Public Practice at Braver Angels, Guzmán leads efforts to foster conversations across ideological lines, equipping Americans with the skills to listen, engage, and understand rather than dismiss and divide. She is also the co-founder of The Evergrey, an award-winning Seattle-based newsletter that deepened civic engagement by encouraging open, thoughtful discourse about local issues.
Her book, "I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times", has been hailed as essential reading for anyone seeking to bridge the gaps in their personal, political, or professional lives. A sought-after speaker, she has shared her insights on platforms ranging from "The New York Times" to The Glenn Beck Podcast, demonstrating her commitment to engaging across ideological boundaries.
Beyond her work in journalism and dialogue, Guzmán serves as an advisor to organizations such as Starts With Us and Generations Over Dinner, which focus on reducing polarization and fostering connection. She has twice served as a juror for the Pulitzer Prizes, was named one of Seattle’s 50 most influential women, and is a former fellow at Harvard’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism.
At her core, Guzmán believes that curiosity is the key to understanding—and that when we lean in with genuine questions rather than easy assumptions, we not only see each other more clearly, but we also discover more about ourselves. She lives in Seattle with her husband and two children and, in her spare time, enjoys escaping into epic storytelling, including as a fearless barbarian in her Dungeons & Dragons campaign.
elissa slotkin
When political savants point to politicians who bridge the partisan fire pit, the first name on their list often is Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan.
A Democrat in a state that defines political battlegrounds, she succeeded Senator Debbie Stabenow in 2024, eking out a narrow win over in a year when her state swung red in the presidential contest.
Her victory defied conventional wisdom, suggesting that voters in Michigan — a state that helped deliver Donald Trump to the White House in 2016 and 2024 and remains a barometer for American political sentiment — still had an appetite for Common Ground moderation.
Slotkin’s brand of politics is shaped less by ideology than by operational clarity. A third-generation Michigander who spent her childhood on a family farm in Holly, the 48-year-old Slotkin took a circuitous path to elected office — serving three tours in Iraq as a CIA analyst before working at the Pentagon under both Republican and Democratic administrations.
When she first ran for Congress in 2018, flipping a Republican-held House seat in Michigan’s 8th District, Slotkin avoided overt partisanship and framed her campaign around kitchen-table issues like health care access and prescription drug costs, even as she never quite shed her intelligence-officer poise. Her signature style — concise, steely, and matter of fact — was in sharp contrast to the more emotionally pitched appeals of some of her colleagues.
Over three terms in the House, she cultivated a reputation as a moderate, joining the Problem Solvers Caucus and staking out centrist ground on issues ranging from immigration to gun control.
Still, Slotkin has shown a willingness to take political risks. In 2019, she was among the first in a group of vulnerable Democrats to call for the impeachment of President Trump — a move that drew fierce backlash in her swing district but ultimately appeared to bolster her credibility with voters who valued independence over allegiance.
Her Senate campaign drew on those same instincts. Running in a state reeling from economic upheaval, rising political violence, and deepening distrust in institutions, Slotkin pitched herself as a stabilizing force.
Born in New York City but raised in Michigan, Slotkin’s grandfather founded Hygrade Meat Company, known for inventing the Ball Park Frank. Her mother, a chef, died of ovarian cancer without insurance, which nearly bankrupted the family — a formative experience that Slotkin says cemented her commitment to overhauling the health care system.