Good Morning, Monster

 

I gobbled this one up! So relatable, even though it’s been years since I was in therapy. I’ve been struggling a bit lately and could probably use a psycho-tune-up. Fighting the negative tapes set in my head is a full time job and unfortunately I have yet to retire from my miserable real job.

Also, my therapist was in her 70s in the 90s—so do the math—and the thought of trying to find a new one makes me depressed. 

Good Morning, Monster: A Therapist Shares Five Heroic Stories of Emotional Recovery by Catherine Gildiner might just get me through my savage case of S.A.D. this winter. Reading Gildiner’s accounts of her interactions with these five very diverse cases, I recognized many familiar themes from my own therapy experience.

"What Laura, Peter, Danny, Alana, and Madeline can teach us is that we can all be heroes. Their struggles exemplify Thomas Hardy’s words in his poem “In Tenebris II”: “If way to the Better there be, it exacts a full look at the Worst.” They remind us that it is possible, although not always easy, to overcome our fears, to break out of our self-imposed boundaries where we mistake confinement for security. Finally, these heroes inspire us by showing that all self-examination is brave."

 Head shrinking requires a courage that only the strongest among us even attempt.