Catherine Gildiner - Good Morning, Monster

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.
Each patient presents a mystery, one that will only be unpacked over years. They seek Gildiner's help to overcome an immediate challenge in their lives, but discover that the source of their suffering has been long buried.
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.

Comment: I got interested in this book because of the theme. I like reading about psychological/medical cases, especially if they are based on real life situations and this title had been recommended because I had read another book with similar topics. I thought the idea was interesting and decided to give it a go.

Dr Gildiner is a psychologist with years of experience and in this book she presents five stories, of five patients she saw and whom she considers to be heroes. Each patient went through complicated situations, which affected them in different ways and due to different reasons but they all have in common the fact they dealt with their issues and recovered to the best of their ability. In this book, we get to know them and what they went through and how the therapist helped them to go on a positive path of recovery.

I had no expectation regarding the book except that it would contain descriptions of how five patients went through their therapy and recovery. I like it when these types of books, which essentially contain a lot of technical information and will include professional jargon which should not be that appealing to someone not of the field, are actually quite appealing and allow us to learn through knowing how the process was for someone else.

What I liked best, in general, was the language and writing style, which was easy, fluid and accessible to the point it sometimes felt this was not about real people, and the author simply was sharing a fictional tale. I liked it that those patients were made to see fragile but not impotent and their recovery process seemed valid and based on strategies I would say felt very realistic. Perhaps the passage of time not so much... some things seemed to happen too quickly even when the author would write "after two years of therapy..." or something like this.

I also liked the inclusion of titles the author consulted and/or suggested that might have been relevant to understand the psychology regarding each patient. In no way is this boring nor too complex that someone who has not read those books or has any notion about certain names (although most readers at least recognize Freud's name) would find it impossible to follow the information. In fact, I liked it that, as with any academic work, the author does reference some sources and subjects.

Still, this felt like fiction to me in how the writing was presented, clearly the author has experience in writing other things than just scientific texts, and the patients were like characters we cherished. Even the author's role was almost like she was a character too, considering her presence in describing the dynamics of what was happening. In a way, this was quite good, but ultimately, it was also the reason why I've lowered my grade, for initially I was aiming for four...

I won't talk about each case because that is precisely the interesting part of reading the book if someone wants to, but there are five cases, each has different issues being dealt with but, as one imagines, trauma and even abuse of several kinds, are part of the patient's journey. Two of the cases are anguishing to read, even in this somewhat "edited" shape. Reading in order, I will say the first two cases were like an introduction and it felt good to see the patients succeed, but the third case had situations I think were too traumatic and perhaps different descriptions would have helped; sometimes the writing feels unappropriated.

Going into the fourth case, this was truly intriguing at the same time it was horrific but I felt the author presented things in a correct enough way. However, the fifth case was a real disappointment. I had this weird feeling from the start, it seemed the writing and the "vibe" had been too different from the others and the author's explanation was quite poor, in my opinion. It made me wonder if there were other things not done in the best way... It did seem it was not written by the same person.

This impression was such that it did color my perception of the whole book, which made em think about other passages differently. Therefore, despite a mostly positive experience, this book ended up not leaving me with the best feeling.

Grade: 6/10