This book argues that a good public health researcher is someone who is familiar with the latest methodological developments in the health area. The Public Health Researcher surveys all major methods. Each method chapter contains a review of relevant studies, and discusses advantages and disadvantages, practical principles, and ethical issues.
About the Author(s)
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Bad Boy RRP: |
A$19.95 |
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| ISBN: | 014300154X | |
| Media: | Paperback | |
| Audience: | Young Adult - Adult | |
| Pages: | 192 | |
| Series: | Penguin Literary Fiction | |
| Origin: | Australia | |
| Publication: | June 2003 | |
| Award: |
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| Penguin Books |
Sydney Morning Herald
It starts innocently enough.
A father and his seven-year-old son are showering together after a
sandy, salty day at the beach. Suddenly there are accusations of sexual
abuse. A finger is pointed and the father is a "poofter pedophile
bastard". Then the father is gone, the boy goes off the rails, and "the
Department" steps in. And that's when the real abuse begins.
It sounds nightmarish but this is not, says the author of Bad Boy, a negative story. It's full of hope, inspiration and courage, the story of yet another child "who risks to trust when experience cries 'no more' ".
Though Bad Boy is his first novel, Michael Gliksman is no stranger to child abuse and the experiences of state wards. A clinical psychologist specialising in child psychology, Gliksman has worked for many years with abused and emotionally disturbed children, is a foster parent and was patron of the Foster Care Association of NSW. He was also a critic of the Department of Community Services and what he saw as its failure to protect the children in its care. Bad Boy will do nothing to improve this relationship.
Born in Sydney to Polish parents who had survived the Holocaust, Gliksman began working with children with emotional difficulties almost immediately out of university. Sitting in his home in Vaucluse, surrounded by dogs and cats, the soft-spoken 51-year-old explains that much of his motivation to improve children's lives came from their stories and "the way they responded if they were treated even halfway decent".
The need to write about these stories has been around for some time but getting them onto paper took longer than Gliksman anticipated. "One of my first motivations was Oliver Sacks's book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. He takes clinical vignettes of people with unusual neurological conditions and writes about them in a way that's not about the conditions at all ... it's about the common existential problems and thoughts we all have that these conditions bring into sharp focus.
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"So I thought: 'That's what I'll do; I'll write up these things as little vignettes of clinical cases that don't actually deal with the clinical side but what it means in terms of courage, resilience, fortitude' ... and found I couldn't do it." It was another four years or so - in which he was busy with foster care and writing opinion pieces for newspapers - before he tried again. "The idea just wouldn't go away ... and somewhere this book was writing itself. Then, four or five years ago, the first five draft chapters just came out. Pretty much like that; they just came out." He says it a work of fiction, "but it's true to the stories I was told ... What I hope I've done is distil, out of things I've experienced, the essence of them." The main protagonist, Joshua, is sent to a care centre ("Macadamia Cottage. Chock full of nuts"), where he is sexually abused. When his doctor learns the truth, those in charge close ranks and turn the accusations back on the doctor. It is something Gliksman is passionate about, albeit quietly: "Institutions, and individuals ... can, and often do, use false accusations, and disbelieve true accusations, where it suits the needs of the institution in terms of maintaining its power. And we've seen that, of course, in relation to church-run institutions but it also exists in the full gamut wherever there is an unequal power relationship and where the vulnerable person has no effective means of bringing forward their complaint." As the conversation turns, naturally, to the recent governor-general scandal, Gliksman reveals that he found the whole thing "disheartening and dispiriting ... there was a stunning lack of insight and a stunning lack of moral leadership. If that's the best the church can do, what purpose does it serve, except its own?" When Gliksman was doing therapy with children he, like the doctor in the book who discovers Joshua's secret, didn't sit them down and talk to them. "First of all, they won't do it; it's too painful. And kids who have been through these experiences are absolutely terrified of being closed in a room with an adult. Understandably. "We'd go up to the shops. We'd go out on bikes, whatever. Then as they came to realise that you were a pretty safe person and, by and large, liked them, things would start to appear, out of the corners little bits would be divulged. Usually, kids blame themselves. It's happened to them because [they think] they are worthless and they deserve it because they are very bad people." Gliksman says he is hoping the book will help people to see the child's perspective: "Why it is that bad behaviour is a symptom, not a symptom of someone who is bad. It's called Bad Boy because he's not. He's someone who's had bad things happen to him and his behaviour becomes bad. ... Also, I hope it gives some hope to young people in that situation, some relief from the guilt that they might feel, that they're not to blame. The person who abused you is to blame. "And to a lesser extent, to me, it's cathartic. I needed to say these things. I wanted that story to get out. The stories I came across were so inspirational. Kids who you think would never want anything again to do with adults and society. And logic dictates that they wouldn't. It doesn't work like that. They want something better ... With just a little bit of watering, they flower."
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