Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic My personal style signifiers are jeans, a great sweater and my ring by Italian designer Monica Castiglioni. I once lost it and had to buy it all over again because I love it so much. There’s something about it: it’s very organic. I generally like rings that don’t completely close, that leave a certain open space. I also wear a necklace that I got from a jeweller in Israel. It’s a mix of black leather and two types of metal, so it has an edgy feel to it. I got into fashion in the late ’80s and ’90s, so I have a bit of a new-wave, punk-rock sensibility.The last thing I bought and loved was a piece by Israeli artist Sigalit Landau. It’s a beautiful black-and-white print of a vintage wedding dress. She took a bunch of objects including wedding dresses and submerged them in the Dead Sea, which is a super-salty body of water, and left them for a long time so they accumulated these barnacles of salt. It’s an otherworldly look at the weight of wedding dresses. It’s very evocative.A place that means a lot to me is Chiang Mai in Thailand. I’ve been there a few times and I’ve always found it to be a magical place. I have a soft spot for Thailand. There’s something about the softness of the people, their way of being with each other, the way they do gender, the temples everywhere… I find it a really humanistic place.If I don’t drink coffee I’m extremely grumpy. Like, unwilling to functionThe best book I’ve read in the past year is H is for Hawk, an extraordinary memoir by Helen Macdonald, who is a falconer. It’s about their relationship with a goshawk, a large breed of hawk, and working through their grief through it. I’m drawn to the relationship between humans and animals, and Macdonald has a way of capturing something about it where the human is secondary, which I love. Also one of Annie Ernaux’s books, Simple Passion. She describes being obsessed with a lover and the process of letting go of that relationship, but she burrows into her own mind, as she often does.Working as a couples therapist has taught me that people really do have the capacity and will to transcend their narcissism. That’s why people couple up. And they struggle. It’s hard – but they can.And the key to a happy relationship depends on what day you ask me. I don’t have one answer. Maybe live and let live. See your partner and try to love them for who they are, not who you want them to be.The best gift I’ve given recently was a set of beautiful Japanese sculpting tools, which I got for my friend Boaz, who sold his market-research company and became an artist. He was deeply happy with it. He’s making a series of wooden couples that are facing each other.And the best gift I’ve received is a portrait of my dog Nico sitting on my therapy chair. It was a gift from my team at Edgeline Productions, the company behind Couples Therapy. Every time we finish a season, they create the most meaningful gifts for me. They once made this collage out of the coloured tags we use to label the recorded sessions; it looks like an abstract artwork. They’re like your best teenage girlfriend who thinks of the perfect gift. Most arguments are started in the frame of attack and defence, which is always a problematic structure of discourse. A lot of arguments could have been saved if people had just said, “This is my truth. This is how I’m feeling. How about you?” Then people wouldn’t need to argue. Attack and defence has to do with an orientation of blame as opposed to trying to see the truth of things.In my fridge you’ll always find batteries. My dad told me that you should keep them in the fridge, and I keep doing it even though I don’t know why. I also try to have avocado, berries and truffle manchego cheese, but I’m not a foodie. I mostly have food in the fridge because my children, Ruby, 24, and Jasper, 15, need to eat.The podcast I listen to once in a while is The Ezra Klein Show. He’s had a few really good ones on the Israel-Palestine situation, including his conversation with Ta-Nehisi Coates, an American author and activist. Did it change my opinion? No. I think it’s generally rare to find something that changes one’s opinion. For most of us – including myself, sadly – we listen to be confirmed. What changes my opinion is when I see what’s going on in Gaza: that changes my opinion a great deal.An indulgence I would never forgo is having two espressos at Café Regular in Brooklyn, where I go every morning. Every important meeting, every important conversation I’ve had in the past eight years – such as my first meeting with Josh and Elyse, two of the directors and executive producers of Couples Therapy – has happened there. It’s the centre of my universe. And if I don’t drink coffee, I’m extremely grumpy. Like, unwilling to function. Dangerous.Love is the most powerful force in the universe. It’s what, in a way, makes a plant burst out of the ground and turn into a tree. It’s the thing that makes life.I’ve recently rediscovered that I love writing more than anything. I’ve been writing forever and have written a lot of academic papers but, because of filming, I kind of got away from it. But I recently signed a book deal – it’s about my understanding of what couples are – and realised that nothing makes me happier. I like having full days where I can write, go into rabbit holes and get lost in research, and then go back to my own writing and move between my desk and the café. Sometimes my daughter and I meet in the café and write side by side. That’s heavenly.I don’t believe in life after death. I’m not a religious person. The people I’ve lost in my life live in me. Their memory and influence lives in me. But I don’t believe in life after death.The last item of clothing I added to my wardrobe was a beautiful long-sleeved Yohji Yamamoto T-shirt that I got when I was in Japan in 2023 for a lecture. I love Japanese aesthetics – their clothing, their furniture. It’s black and white and has an unexpected print. It’s like a painting. On my Instagram “For You” page you’ll find animal and ballet videos. I did ballet most of my life, until I had my first child, and I love watching dancers and gorgeous ballerinas achieving these incredible feats. But it’s mostly animal videos – baby elephants and very verbal huskies – and I think that’s good for my mental health. The one artist whose work I would collect if I could is Jack Whitten, an incredible African-American artist whose work is mostly abstract and non-figurative. It’s breathtaking. They’re like formal compositions but with incredible use of paint and subtle colours. Then there’s a long-dead Israeli artist, Moshe Kupferman, whom I have a few pieces by. There’s something similar about the two artists, even though they painted at different times – a lot of greys and layering, but there’s a whole world in there. You feel like you can dive into it.The beauty staple I’m never without is Phyto shampoo. It’s good for fine straight hair like mine. Otherwise, I’m lacking. Skincare rituals? No. I put moisturiser on in the morning, I wash my face at night. Phyto Shampoo, £14 for 250mlThe best thing about my job is that it puts me in touch with people’s ongoing search for truth and transcendence. It puts me in touch with the decent parts of humanity. My job is accompanying people while they transcend all sorts of bad things that happen to them and get better. Also, working with the production and director team that I work with. They’re very talented but they’re also very decent and ethical people – and surrounding yourself with talented, ethical people is the key to a good life. And I think because the show has been so successful, it’s given me a sense of responsibility. We know we’re having an impact on the world, and we take it seriously. We have a chance to actually make a difference, to move the needle. We’re doing something good.My favourite app is The Breathing App, for meditation, which I try to practise every day. It gives rhythm to your breath, and you can adjust the inhale and exhale. And unfortunately, I’m on a lot of news apps – The New York Times, BBC, Al Jazeera, Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper – which is a big time sink. I’m trying to manage that.I’m a very avid yogi. I have several instructors but the studio I love most is Kula Yoga in Brooklyn. I go twice a week, three times if I’m lucky. A lot of dancers make that shift at some point.A way to make me laugh is to gesture things with your body language that are impossible to put in words – whether it’s capturing something that an animal does or humans do, that’s the kind of thing that will get me laughing forever.My favourite building is the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, north of Copenhagen. It’s the most gorgeous museum ever. There are lots of glass passageways and the inside and outside blend beautifully. It’s not grandiose. It’s very humble and the experience of seeing art there is great. It’s just the right size.My style icon is my mum, who was an art curator all her professional life. I love her style in the sense that it’s very understated. She likes geometric stuff. She likes solid colours. Never flashy. She just has really good taste. I also think Michelle Obama is incredible in terms of the way she uses fashion to support her message. It’s beautiful and tough. Like, she appreciates beauty but she’s also uncompromising.The last music I downloaded was “Cmon”, a track by Brian Eno and Fred Again. It’s electronic but it kind of goes somewhere emotionally. It’s perfect for writing.In another life, I would probably have been a painter. I’ve recently convinced my closest friends to get into the habit of bringing art supplies; we’ll spend weekends together and paint side by side. We don’t talk much when we’re painting – it’s just the pleasure of it. It’s contagious.The best bit of advice I ever received was the statement “that’s information”. We’re always in some kind of negotiation with reality: what we like, what we don’t like, what we want to change. There is a way to look at things that happen as simply information – not something you have to do anything about. It gives you the option to not intervene but observe.
