ABSTRACT
On 31 March 2004 the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper car-
ried the article titled ‘Adara wasn’t pretending – it was cancer’ (Robotham, 2004:
1). The article describes how in September 2000 Adara, a three-year-old child who
was experiencing severe and ongoing vomiting, was admitted to hospital and later
diagnosed with psychiatric problems. These problems, according to Robotham,
included a ‘provisional diagnosis of anhedonia, which means depression’, ‘per-
vasive refusal syndrome’, and ‘attention-seeking and reactive depression’ (ibid.).
