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

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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! Cathy continues her frequent trips to New York to work with Madeline. Cathy gets perspective on Madeline’s relationship with her mother, and just what kind of workplace environment Madeline is leading. 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."

Good Morning, Monster: A Therapist Shares Five Heroic Stories

There is Laura, who was abandoned in a cabin as a child and sought to hide that fact from the world as she stepped into the role of parent for her younger siblings. There is Peter, the son of immigrants, who was consigned nearly from birth to years spent alone in a room above the family restaurant; years that left him with developmental deficits harsh enough to deny him the intimacy he so required as an adult. There is Danny, an Indigenous man, who was ripped from his family by the government so that he might have his native ways educated out of him, only to suffer repeated abuse in the school ostensibly meant to save him. There is Alana, the daughter of a pedophile, who was proffered to her father's friends until society intervened to place her with her paternal grandparents - where the true nightmare began. And there is Madeline, whose aristocratic mother greeted her every day with the phrase destined to become this book's title.Almost all abusive parenting is based on generations of the same; those who are abusive were likely themselves abused. That's why there are no enemies in these cases, but rather layers of dysfunction to unravel. As anyone who has sat through a Zoom therapy session knows, there's really no substitute for the real thing. But, the book world is giving it a shot... Good Morning, Monster by Catherine Gildiner is a psychologist's retelling of five of her most memorable (and harrowing) cases." — Entertainment Weekly She has also written a novel, SEDUCTION, a thriller about Darwin and Freud. It was chosen by DER SPIEGAL as one of the ten best mysteries.

Good Morning, Monster: A Therapist Shares Five Heroic Stories Good Morning, Monster: A Therapist Shares Five Heroic Stories

As in such recent classics as The Glass Castle and Educated, each patient embodies self-reflection, stoicism, perseverance, and forgiveness as they work unflinchingly to face the truth. Gildiner's account of her journeys with them is moving, insightful, and sometimes very funny. Good Morning Monster offers an almost novelistic, behind-the-scenes look into the therapist's office, illustrating how the process can heal even the most unimaginable wounds. 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

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. 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 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.