Publishers Weekly
07/06/2020
Clinical psychologist Gildiner (Too Close to the Falls) shares heart-wrenching stories of child abuse in this pull-no-punches narrative about five of her patients. Of them, nine-year-old Laura was abandoned by her sociopathic father in a Canadian winter and left to raise her younger siblings; Peter was locked away in an attic by his mother until his fifth birthday and terrorized by her thereafter, leading to impotence and the inability to have a normal romantic relationship; Alana’s father began raping her at the age of four and forced her to have sex with his friends, causing dissociative identity disorder; Danny was stripped of his Cree heritage and endured sexual assault by priests at a state-run school; and Madeline was a brittle workaholic whose verbally and emotionally abusive mother conditioned her to believe she has no worth and is a “monster.” While each patient first comes to Gildiner with an immediate health concern, they all find healing by opening up, delving into their past to uncover former traumas, and finding forgiveness for those who have caused them harm. These painful accounts will break anyone’s heart, and also inspire awe for the ways people who suffered horrific abuse were able to find a measure of recovery. (Sept.)
From the Publisher
ONE OF Newsweek's 30 THOUGHTFUL BOOKS TO GIFT
"Both wrenching and hopeful." —Newsweek
"For fans of Lori Gottlieb... a therapist recounts five of her most fascinating patients, with a focus on how heroic they are for overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles." —Business Insider
"Affecting... Insightful psychological lessons of special interest to readers on therapeutic journeys of their own." —Kirkus
"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
"A fascinating memoir...heartwarming, heartbreaking, and inspirational." —Midwest Book Review
"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
"These stories show how the process of therapy can heal even the deepest wound and most traumatic of experiences." —Lee Woodruff
"Allows one the privilege of seeing the therapist-patient relationship as an essentially human interaction." —JM Coetzee, Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature
“Enthusiastic and insightful” —Toronto Star
"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
"Brilliant piece of work, both heart-rending and chilling. I was moved to tears... a great book for any time. I had promised myself that I would read one episode for each of five days. Instead I read right through from beginning to end." —Valery Hemingway, author of Running With the Bulls
“Like Oliver Sacks, Catherine Gildiner loves her patients... Gildiner is a master of shoot-from-the-hip nonfiction—funny, direct and honest about what she sees in others and what she sees in herself. Highly readable!” —Susan Swan, author of The Wives of Bath
“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
“These stories are almost mythic in their power... I couldn’t put this book down.” —Antanas Sileika, author of Provisionally Yours
“Compelling, heart-in-throat stories prove no one is ‘damaged goods.’ I’m in awe of the five patients and of Gildiner’s exceptional creativity as she guides each one toward emotional freedom.” —Rona Maynard, author of My Mother’s Daughter
Kirkus Reviews
2020-08-26
A Toronto-based clinical psychologist weighs the travails of mental illness on both sufferer and healer.
In addition to patient stories, Gildiner also recounts instances of her own Type A behavior, which leads to the tendency “to mow others down while driving toward our own ambitions.” In one case, she took a patient, to use her apt metaphor, above the depths of the unconscious so quickly that the result was akin to “psychological bends.” The power of the therapist can breed complacency, she notes, and, combined with years of experience, the feeling that one has seen it all. In Gildiner’s case, she certainly had not, and her book is full of self-discovery. One of the most affecting sections of her five-part case study concerns a Cree man who had weathered the death of a child, physical and sexual abuse, and depression. He also suffered from what she calls the “multigenerational trauma” of similar losses, a trauma resistant to treatment by psychotherapy, which “wasn’t designed to deal with cultural annihilation.” Another patient suffers not from multiple personality, as the common trope has it, but instead from dissociative identity, which “means that a fragmentation of the main personality has occurred.” Given that fragmentation refers to bits and pieces of missing psychological skills, it’s a wonder all of us don’t merit the diagnosis. In another instance, a woman was told daily by her grudging mother that she was a monster, “spoiled, grumpy, lazy, and fat,” when in fact she was none of those things. The brainwashing is just that practiced by narcissists at all levels—a valuable lesson for all readers, given how exposed we are to narcissists these days. Overcoming fear is no easy thing, writes the author, and her five patients as well as her own therapy lead her to the pointed conclusion that “all self-examination is brave."
Insightful psychological lessons of special interest to readers on therapeutic journeys of their own.
