Resources: Review - In-depth examination of child abuse

Chapters one and two look at the main failures in the history ofprofessional responses to child abuse and how children have beensilenced by media bias.

Chapters three to five talk about the strengths of a child-centredapproach and of a qualitative research method that focuses on children'sown meanings, understandings and descriptions of events.

Chapters six to eight quote the children interviewed and highlight thecomplexities of child abuse, raising such issues as the ambivalentregard one girl has for her abusive father, and how some professionalinterventions are experienced as abusive.

Chapter nine is a concise look at child abuse as analogous tohostage-taking, as perpetrators and victims of both have comparablepsychological profiles. It also looks at various strategies that victimsuse to survive, such as disassociation, illustrated by a boy who isScorpion, an all-powerful fictitious character.