1 Boston, Massachusetts
The present literature on child abuse is rife with contradictions. In part this stems from an inadequate base of knowledge about the problem; protective activities on behalf of children are frequently unable to sustain or improve the competence of disorganized families to nurture their offspring. Medical and social work practitioners, not to say health and social planners, who would develop enlightened alternatives to prevailing clinical practice, are obliged to navigate a sea of speculations and substantial theories about child abuse, derived from poorly conceived case series and, not infrequently, from little data at all.