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

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If you are looking for a book that tells you in detail what a therapist thinks about her clients and how she tries to help solve their problems, and you also want to read the tragic but true stories of people who were abandoned, neglected, suffered different forms of abuse, this could be the book for you. She said she was twenty-six, single, and working in a large securities firm. She’d started out as a secretary but had been promoted to the human resources department. First of all, Good Morning, Monster is heart-breaking, because the book tells the stories of real people and the horrors they had to endure over long periods of time. There are so many abysmal things these men and women went through that I found it hard to read on at times. The book made me cry more than once, and since the stories told are at times rather detailed, it is sometimes a long way in each story until you see the success, if you want to, you can call that the happy ending.

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

THE DAY I OPENED my private practice as a psychologist, I sat smugly in my office. Fortified with the knowledge I’d acquired, taking comfort in the rules I’d learned, I looked forward to having patients I could “cure.” Thanks to NetGalley for providing me a complimentary copy of GOOD MORNING MONSTER by Catherine Gildiner in exchange for my honest review.*** When I asked whether her sexual partner knew he had herpes, Laura replied that Ed, her boyfriend of two years, had said he didn’t. However, she’d found a pill vial in his cabinet that she recognized as the same medication she’d been prescribed. When I questioned her about this, she acted as though it was normal and that there wasn’t much she could do about it. She said, “That’s Ed. I’ve already ripped a strip off him. What more can I do?”Gildiner chose fascinating people to include in her book. She had the luxury of being able to see her clients for years, something that’s sometimes prohibitive in America due to insurance and HMO restrictions. Of course, wealthier clients can private pay.

Good Morning, Monster: Five Heroic Journeys to Recovery Good Morning, Monster: Five Heroic Journeys to Recovery

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 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

Gildiner’s subject is heroism — writ large and with poignant specificity in five unforgettable patients’ lives . Good Morning, Monster will bolster your faith in human endurance, and make you root more fiercely for us all.“ — Paula McLain, author of Love and Ruin and The Paris Wife Dr. G. writes with sincerity, honesty and compassion about her patients; her respect for each of them clearly shines through in her words.

Good Morning, Monster on Apple Podcasts ‎Good Morning, Monster on Apple Podcasts

I enjoyed her explanations of certain therapies and theories (which reminded me of all I had studied in college) and how she learned that each patient is different and adapts multiple therapeutic strategies for each person. In this Blink, we’ll cover three of these five patients’ stories. These men and women all experienced enormous hardship in their childhoods, which followed them into their adult lives. You’ll learn about a music prodigy left alone for most of his childhood, a Cree man who was abducted from his family by the Canadian government as a child and put in a residential school, and a highly successful antique dealer whose company began to crumble when her anxiety spiked. My streak of outstanding reads continues. Though I have only read 31 books this year, the number of 5 stars books amongst that lot is remarkable. And the streak continues with Good Morning Monster. Have you ever started unwrapping a present, expecting one layer of wrapping paper, but found a mischievous relative added layer after layer for you to dig through to find the present? Even if you haven’t, imagine the surprise you might feel at encountering more layers than you’d expected! One of Peter’s biggest realizations throughout his work with Gildiner was that although his mother did what she thought was best for their family – and indeed, did better than her relatives had done for her when she was young – she had still abused and neglected him.

One such patient was a pianist, Peter. Initially, the musician was working with a urologist because of erectile dysfunction. However, the urologist could find no reason why Peter – who could masturbate to completion and had no physical impediments – couldn’t achieve an erection during sex. Peter was attracted to women and wanted a sexual relationship, but even the strongest, most reliable drug the urologist had didn’t help. All of the cases feature victims of extreme child abuse and sexual violence, and are therefore hard to read. I found the first two stories heartbreaking but inspirational. It was great to see therapy in action, helping people find peace with themselves and their history, and eventually lead much happier, healthier lives. I loved that part, and left those chapters feeling inspired to take a closer look at my own mental health. The book was published in September 2019 and has been praised by the likes of Glennon Doyle and Lori Gottlieb.

Good Morning, Monster: A - Goodreads Readers who enjoyed Good Morning, Monster: A - Goodreads

I chose this book after reading Lori Gottlieb’s “Maybe You Should Talk to Someone,” another winner. Anyone who liked that one will surely love this one. I think it hasn’t gotten the attention Ms. Gottlieb’s book did at this stage of the game because of the odd title (which I finally understood in the last chapters). Don’t let that deter you from grabbing a copy of this truly inspirational and educational book that will make you think about yourself as well. Recommended for all. 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 This feels like the authors memoir as much as it’s a professional look at the process between therapist Disclaimer 2: I’m an American psychologist. I earned my doctorate in the early 1990s, after some of the Dr Gildiner’s stories, which took place in Canada, occurred. Some of my opinions may be based on differences in time and location.** I was hooked immediately, and my interest did not flag for a single second. This book is gold. Every one of the five individual journeys proved to be highly inspirational and incredibly interesting. I learned so much about the power of the human subconscious and the ability of psychotherapy to break through. These types of issues are not something that can be untangled in a couple of weeks; all of the patients were in therapy for 4-5 years. But if you ask any one of them, it was worth it.

This also makes me question the book’s theme. It makes me wonder if the hero angle was an afterthought-a way to justify the use of all those personal details. Gildiner says she received each client’s consent to write the book. My guess is that they agreed based on the idea that there would be more focus on the hero, less on the trauma and victimization. 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. She also quotes works and theories from other psychologists, some known and others completely unknown to me. PDF / EPUB File Name: Good_Morning_Monster_-_Catherine_Gildiner.pdf, Good_Morning_Monster_-_Catherine_Gildiner.epub 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."