Good Morning, Monster: A Therapist Shares Five Heroic Stories of Emotional Recovery

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Good Morning, Monster is an intriguing book that explores in detail the experience of a clinical psychologist and 5 of her most memorable patients. In this fascinating narrative, therapist Catherine Gildiner’s presents five of what she calls her most heroic and memorable patients. Among them: a successful, first generation Chinese immigrant musician suffering sexual dysfunction; a young woman whose father abandoned her at age nine with her younger siblings in an isolated cottage in the depth of winter; and a glamorous workaholic whose narcissistic, negligent mother greeted her each morning of her childhood with "Good morning, Monster." Since reading Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed last year, I've been so eager to find something similar. I fell prey to the marketing for Group: How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life, and, for some twisted reason, I actually finished that awful book despite it being one of the most cringey reading experiences I've ever had the displeasure of going through. Not only did it not quench my thirst for another Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, it nearly put me off of the idea of books centering around therapists for good. Have you or a loved one ever participated in therapy? If you have, you know it can be extremely challenging! Confronting your unsavory characteristics, wading through a mess of pain, suffering, and trauma from childhood, or even working through problems with loved ones with the support of a neutral third party – these are not easy tasks.

Good Morning, Monster: A Therapist Shares Five Heroic S… Good Morning, Monster: A Therapist Shares Five Heroic S…

A therapist's account of five of her most thought-provoking patients, I would have liked to have more information about the process of obtaining consent and/or obscuring personal details enough to maintain the patients' anonymity. Consent is touched on in the author's note, but when the author mentions talking about the book with her patients throughout the text, the exchange sounds more like Catherine Gildiner telling the patients they will be included rather than asking permission. One of the patients has since passed away, so I wonder how he was able to consent to sharing his story?

Gildiner is astute, active, pragmatic, and hopeful. She is also very funny. Her wit and her wisdom are gifts shared with these five people — and now with all of us readers." — David S. Goldbloom, co-author of How Can I Help?: A week in My Life as a Psychiatrist

Good Morning, Monster - Macmillan Good Morning, Monster - Macmillan

But inspired? Mostly I just felt sad at the capacity humans have for hurting other humans, for the ways that hurt can easily get passed on generations down the line, and for all the times the people who are SUPPOSED to notice and follow up on suspected neglect or abuse just ... don't. In every case, the patient who was abused as a child could have been saved a world of hurt had other adults stepped in and said, "no, something isn't right here." Although this book centers on the healing of Gildiner’s patients, it is also about her own gifts and growth as a therapist... Hats off to Gildiner for doing a heroic therapeutic job and for writing about it so eloquently." — New York Journal A llows one the privilege of seeing the therapist-patient relationship as an essentially human interaction." — JM Coetzee, Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature

These are heart-wrenching stories of survival; the depiction of lives rising up to be lived despite the insurmountable odds erected against them. Calling these people heroes is apt. However, there is a palpable distance to be found in the account of their struggles. I suspect this has something to do with the Freudian leanings of their therapist - a methodology that is not relational or connective. She was, per her theoretical stance, not on the journey with them but more an audience to it; which is fine in the treatment dynamic but leaves much empathy and understanding unavailable to be tapped in a literary venue. As a result, the telling became a bit prurient for me. Less five testimonials to courage than five sensationalized accounts of Alice down her rabbit hole. Heart-wrenching stories... [that] inspire awe for the ways people who suffered horrific abuse were able to find a measure of recovery." — Publisher's Weekly The immense suffering and horrific abuse these men and women have endured is beyond belief of the human mind to comprehend.