Anything for Love (A Therapist, Nine Patients, and the Toxic Bonds that Shaped Them)

A page turning follow up to the bestselling Good Morning, Monster

In her fascinating new collection of case studies, therapist Cathy Gildiner explores the nature of the parent child bond and the astonishing, creative and ingenious lengths patients will go to keep that bond alive, however dysfunctional.

Dr. Gildiner presents nine of her most memorable patients, including a schizophrenic man who builds religious altars in the tunnels of a now defunct mental hospital, a successful businessman whose relationship with his mother makes anger impossible and so rage bubbles out of his skin in debilitating eczema, and a librarian who is assigned to play the femme fatale on a murder mystery cruise and is unable to give up the role when she returns to her real life. Gildiner also presents the challenges of supporting patients with dramatically diverse cultural backgrounds, from a Somali teenager to a Cambodian woman who survived the Pol Pot regime where people were forced to kill their parents to prove their bond was not to family but to the Khmer Rouge.

With wit and empathy, Gildiner brings each case to vivid life, celebrating her patients’ flinty determination. And unusually, she takes us not just to her office but to court, businesses, and hospitals. In the process, she lifts the curtain on the daily work of a therapist and celebrates humanity’s remarkable resilience.