Five Heroic Journeys to Recovery
July 6, 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.
Starred review from September 1, 2019
Retired clinical psychologist Gildiner's (Coming Ashore, 2014) latest memoir recounts her work with five of her most unforgettable patients: adults who each suffered horrific abuse, and sought therapy to heal their gaping emotional wounds. Gildiner recounts her sessions with each patient in an easy-to-understand format, while also explaining the physiological aspect of the brain and its relation to emotional trauma. Each patient is described with care and detail: a woman who lost her mother as a child, and was then abandoned by her father in a remote cabin in the woods; a musician suffering from sexual dysfunction; an Indigenous man taken from his family by the government; a lesbian who was horribly abused by her father; and a workaholic who had been neglected and unloved by her mother, who greeted her each day with Good morning, monster." Their case histories are inspirational, heart breaking, gut-wrenching, and at times tough to read, but impossible to put down. Gildiner's journeys with each client are thought provoking and insightful as she also writes how each client affected her personally and added to her own growth as a therapist. Fans of Torey Hayden books will love this memoir.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)