A fascinating look into the lives of 5 therapy patients. All of these patients had to overcome so much in their lives, and the author (and I!) consider them to be heroes because of it. A very interesting read.

This was a pretty interesting read. I always wondered what Goes on in the minds of therapists and how they process different situations as they can be quite upsetting. This book gives you an insight into all of that. Highly recommended. Multiple stories and insights, all involving different personalities and situations. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Catherine Gildiner shares amazing accounts of five therapy patients who managed to overcome years of abuse and neglect, against all odds. Dr. Gildiner encourages us to re-think what it really means to be a hero as she introduces us to five individuals who have inspired and taught her much in her years of practice. While it is difficult to read the heart-wrenching accounts of her patients lives, these stories are so inspirational and full of hope. With honesty and tenderness, Dr. Gildiner sheds light on the amount of courage, hard work and tenacity it takes to embrace therapy and strive for survival. "They remind us that is possible, although not always easy, to overcome our fears..." Gilidner's dedication to helping others and to transform the stigma of mental and emotional health makes her another hero in this book. After reading this book, I am anxious to read more by Dr. Gildiner.

This was a phenomenal book. Catherine Gildner writes about five of her patients that she deems most heroic. This inside view of her practice and of her therapeutic sessions. She has the art of storytelling so that I felt drawn to her clients. Be warned some of the accounts are very hard to read.

When you're a therapist, or any kind of clinician for 25+ years, you're going to see humanity pushed to its limits.

Gildiner presents five short stories—of five individuals who overcame incredible, and at times, incredibly disturbing trauma, to come out the other side as heroes. These are psychological heroes who refused to succumb to mental illness, addiction or despair despite overwhelming odds.

Gildiner leans on her mentors, her training and her commitment to the evidence base to guide her practice and herself as a therapist. Rather than simply telling their stories, Gildiner explores why she thinks each individual overcame such weighty odds to be such a standout case in all her years as a therapist. Incredible book. Compelling, engaging and written with flair.

I did not find this inspiring at all. Perhaps a more skillful writer could pull off this subject matter and turn it around but I felt like nothing was explored as well as it could be and as a reader, that I was left in the muck a bit.

Great book! I found this book to be incredibly inspiring. It details 5 persons stories as told through the lens of their therapist. These people have experienced traumatic and horrific events in their lives that have undoubtedly greatly impacted who they have become and their interpersonal relationships throughout life. They are all such strong, resilient people. While their journeys to healing are heart-wrenching at times, they are ultimately quite uplifting.

I also appreciated Dr Gildiner's psychological insight throughout the stories. I not only learned about the resiliency of the human spirit, but also about the laborious, often slow work of healing through therapy. I found that I learned some about myself too through this book.

I highly recommend this book. I do note that some of the stories contain episodes of physical, emotional and sexual abuse so I would exercise caution for younger readers or those who may be sensitive to this content.

Note: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

As a mental health professional, I really enjoyed reading about these cases. It took me a bit to get into, but I ended up reading about 80% of the book in one weekend. I hope other people read this and learn a little more about psychology and how our childhoods impact us for the rest of our lives.

Holy cow! this book checks all the boxes. It is technically fiction because the author is a real therapist who once she started her own private practice knew she had to tell theses stories. The author/psychologist admits she often ran two patients together that had similar backgrounds so she could tell the story more efficiently.
Settle in for a shocking ride as you learn just what a person can go through to keep going. We all have a past but some people it is a sheer miracle they are still trying.
This book is not for the academics who will do their own case studies on the 5 people but it is a book for us the readers to know we are not alone. My favorite case study is Laura and the fire she still has lit inside of her.
Mental Health finally be out in front and not hidden away to be ashamed of. Wonderful read if you are looking for something similar to last years's hit "You should talk to someone."

Good Morning, Monster by Dr. Catherine Gildiner chronicles the stories of 5 different patients she had during her 30 years as a psychologist. She details their backgrounds, their progressions, their setbacks, and ultimately makes a case for each patient in regards to why she considers them a hero.

I have to say I agree with her in that each of these individuals were heroic in the face of varying circumstances of extreme abuse. Dr. Gildiner didn't sugarcoat the stories, and for me it made them more real. I was captivated, once I started reading I could hardly put it down. The writing flowed well from one story to the next, I never felt unmoored when leaving one section and continuing to the next. I was disappointed when each story ended only because I felt truly bonded with each patient and with Dr. Gildiner as well.

If you liked Maybe You Should Talk To Someone by Lori Gottleib, I highly suggest you also read Good Morning, Monster. I can not recommend this book enough.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martins Press for providing me a copy of Good Morning, Monster by Catherine Gildiner in exchange for my honest review.

What a wonderful, insightful book. While each individual story was engrossing, as a whole they were fascinating. Never having been in therapy, it was an insight to see how it works. When it works well, it is so satisfying. The horrors that these individuals faced were heartbreaking, but to see the outcome leaves you with a feeling of hopefulness.

Dr. Gildiner provides a glimpse into her thirty year career as a therapist through the stories of five of her patients who she considers psychological heroes.

Honestly, this was so much better than I expected. I flew through it in two days and already want to read it again. The stories of Laura, Peter, Danny, Alana, and Madeline were gut-wrenching...and completely unputdownable. Much like Alana's "vomit items," this book made me sick to my stomach. These five people are true heroes for not only surviving, but crawling their way out of darkness and forcing themselves into the light.

This book simultaneously made me regretful and so incredibly glad that I ultimately chose not to pursue counseling as a career. That said, fellow psych nerds: add this to your TBR list!

How resilient the human spirit and how fascinating the study of human life and behaviors, This felt like reading a descriptive and storied case study of five individuals and loved it - wishing there were even more individuals included. Although it does take you almost the entire book to find out where the title emerged from.

Dr, Catherine Gildiner has written an extraordinary novel about 5 of her most memorable patients that suffered from various mental illnesses. She writes with compassion, as she delves deep into their lives, and backgrounds to help with problems of abandonment, abuse, sexual dysfunction, anxiety, OCD, PTSD and identity disorders using different psychological therapies. I loved this novel that read like a mystery, and kept the pages turning, I wanted to find out what happened to each character as insightful details of their lives were revealed and they progressed or regressed. in therapy. I felt deeply for Laura, Peter, Danny, Alana and Madeline as they found what secrets held them hostages, how they each changed and found the love they so desperately needed. I appreciated Dr. Gildiner's forthright honesty. She was self-deprecating and easily admitted when she had made a mistake in her therapy, searching or researching to find what didn't work and also how she learned from her own background history. I recommend this book highly, it is written in a way anyone can read and is also one that is helpful for professionals.

Many thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC of this book.

TW: child physical, emotional, and sexual abuse and neglect, mention of substance use, First Nation cultural genocide, incest, eating disorders

As a self-proclaimed psychology nerd and someone who deeply enjoys personal stories from psychotherapists, I was so excited to receive this book.

Laura, Danny, Peter, Alana, and Madeline are all previous patients of Dr. Catherine Gildiner. Gildiner masterfully alternates from describing previous therapy sessions with her patients to describing her reactions to scenarios and the research behind aspects of personality or life experiences. However, you do not have to have any sort of degree in psychology to follow along with any of these beautiful stories. There are parts that are difficult to stomach but that’s part of what makes this book so real and raw. Dr. Gildiner doesn’t sugar-coat anything but describes how she made progress with clients despite horrific events they’ve encountered.

“Laura was the first but not the last hero I would encounter in my practice. At nine years old she’d manage to live in a forest for six months with two younger children.”

“[Danny] sat there in silence for the rest of our first session, and for all our sessions during the next three months. Our quiet didn’t have the gluey silence of depression - it felt as though he just wanted to be left alone. Yet he continued to show up every week.”

“Madeline‘a fourth year of therapy would prove to be extremely tumultuous for both of us. I would make a big mistake as a psychologist, one that I would pay dearly for.”

I received a free e-ARC from netgalley.
As someone with a M.S. in Counseling Psychology, I'm still very interested in the field of Counseling even though I don't practice it any more. This book was very interesting to me and hard to put down. If you liked Educated you might enjoy this as well because most of the clients in this book of 5 therapy stories have also had horrible childhoods inflicted on them by one or both parents or by a system designed to destroy them. It reads more like a work of fiction than nonfiction, but you also kinda wish it was fiction because what these young children (now adults in therapy) endured is horrifying to contemplate.

Big thanks to NetGalley for an ARC of Good Morning, Monster. As a relatively new therapist, I'm always digging for books that describe the perspectives of other therapists that have been in the trenches and seen more over the course of an entire career. It's not often that clients are seen over the span of several years, so these particular cases are looked at in a refreshingly different way than in similar books that came before it. GMM is sure to be a hit for anyone interested in the ways trauma impacts individuals over a lifespan and the complex nature of trauma in families overall. These stories are real, descriptive, and potentially triggering for those that have experienced sexual trauma or physical/emotional abuse - but worth the read if you're curious about the depth of the human experience and want examples of resilience & strength after enduring darkness.

In this book Dr Catherine Gildiner, a Canadian therapist, recounts her work with five former adult patients. Laura, Peter, Danny, Alana and Madeline all start therapy with Dr. Gildiner for a variety of different reasons. While the patients come to Dr. Gildiner seeing help to work through seemly standard issues such as stress, anxiety, intimacy issues, as the therapy sessions unfold the reader is taken deeper into the lives of each patient. Dr. Gildiner gets each person to recognize deeper trauma stretching back to childhood and in some cases generations.

The five people chronicled in the book spend years meeting with Dr. Gildiner to uncover the root causes for their struggles. At times it was difficult to read about the abandonment, pedophilia, physical and mental abuses the patients were subjected to during their childhoods. As a reader it is easy to be shocked, outraged and angry at the horrific experiences. Secrecy and shame is often associated with many of the events that happened to the people profiled in the book leading to less positive outcome, yet each person worked hard to achieve happiness and peace. I had to keep in mind while the book was written in present day, the work Dr. Gildiner did with her patients took place 20-30 years ago, and the traumas the patients were recounting in some cases happened 50 years ago. It also made me realize while society is more willing to talk about uncomfortable topics, there are still many people who fall victim to terrible people today.

As I read each person’s journey, I was amazed at their ability to work hard and rise up from their pasts. The group as a whole had constant challenges as children and adults where their strength and resilience were constantly put to the test, yet each of Dr Gildiner’s patients ultimately overcome adversities. Dr. Gildiner was truly invested in her patients she was able to reflect, learn and grow as a therapist. While the subject matter could be difficult at time, each person profiled is a survivor.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC.

Good Morning, Monster
By: Catherine Gildiner
Not one but five true stories from a psychologist… um YES PLEASE!!!!
I was so excited when I got this book. I find it very fascinating to read about real people, their lives and what goes on behind the scenes in their life. This book will show that even when people portray themselves one way there can be something totally different going on within themselves. This book was a very easy, fascinating read, and I would recommend you pick it up right away. It will have you in shock when you hear their stories and you will be rooting for them as they slowly make progress through therapy and gain a deeper understanding of themselves and how strong they really are and have been. The 5 people in this story are truly amazing and have overcome so much, they are true heroes.

**Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing me with a complimentary copy of Good Morning, Monster by Catherine Gildiner in exchange for my honest review. ***

***Thanks to NetGalley for providing me a complimentary copy of GOOD MORNING MONSTER by Catherine Gildiner in exchange for my honest review.***

** 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.**

Dr Catherine Gildiner chronicles five clients, most who suffered severe abuse, over the course of several years as their therapist. What first struck me was Gildiner seemed woefully unprepared to be a therapist, through no fault of her own. By the time I was in private practice, I had a few years of internships under my belt with a variety of different type clients. I never thought of a client as my “first”, because I always saw a number of people simultaneously. Therapists don’t see just one client, we have a whole slate of people we see weekly or biweekly. I didn’t understand the “first client”.

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.

Dr Gildiner’s writing style is engaging, her storytelling interesting. I wondered why she choose to include so much detailed back about clients, when much of the work of treatment has less to do with the nitty gritty details than the work between the therapist and client and what the client does between sessions.

I gasped out loud when she told a male sexual abuse survivor that he was likely chosen by the priest because of his attractiveness and was glad he walked out for several weeks. She still doesn’t seem to understand what an obtuse comment she made to a traumatized adult. I’m not sure the quality of her work as a therapist, but I do think she believed she was good at her job.

Gildiner does a great job explaining psychological concepts in a way that lay folks will understand. Most readers will enjoy her stories. I’m probably more critical than the average reader.

a GOOD MORNING MONSTER will appeal to readers interested in therapy, psychology and child abuse.