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

Catherine Gildiner

Sep 2020 · Macmillan Audio · Narrated by Deborah Burgess

About this audiobook

"Catherine Gildiner is nothing short of masterful—as both a therapist and writer. In these pages, she has gorgeously captured both the privilege of being given access to the inner chambers of people's lives, and the meaning that comes from watching them grow into the selves they were meant to be." —Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

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.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press

"Good Morning, Monster allows one the privilege of seeing the therapist-patient relationship as an essentially human interaction." —JM Coetzee, Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature

Ratings and reviews

This book sucks. My husband’s girlfriend gave me this book for “learning how to parent correctly,” that was a joke. She has five kids and works at McDonald’s and she wants to give me parenting advice. I read the first three pages and gave up. End result, I still beat my kids.

Love love loved. It's not for everyone as it is graphic. But this was better than therapy. If you can take some hard scenarios that could be triggering for some.. You can relate them in your own life. So good.

life changing stories

About the author

CATHERINE GILDINER was a clinical psychologist in private practice for twenty-five years. Her best-selling memoir Too Close to The Falls was published to international acclaim. She lives in Toronto.