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Chapter 1
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Dibs in Search of Self, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Therapy, Empathy, and Non-Judgment
Parental Expectations vs. Self-Determination
Trust and Security
Intelligence vs. Emotional and Social Skills
Summary
Analysis
Axline writes that understanding grows from personal experience. Even if people can’t always understand another person’s behavior, they can grant that everyone has a meaningful private world. Axline is excited to meet Dibs; first, she plans to go to the school and observe him with other children. Axline wants to understand Dibs so that she can help him develop and use his abilities more constructively.
From the outset, Axline demonstrates that her main goal is to empathize with Dibs. While she may not fully understand Dibs’s reasons for doing things, in simply recognizing him as a human being with dignity, she can help him come out of his shell. By attempting to understand Dibs, she can, in turn, help him understand himself.
Themes
Axline observes Dibs’s class as the children arrive for school. Dibs’s mother speaks briefly to Miss Jane and then quickly says goodbye. Axline sees that Dibs is large for his age, and that he’s very pale. Miss Jane helps take Dibs’s hat and coat. Then, a little boy runs up to Dibs and asks him to play, but Dibs lashes out at him. Dibs then goes over to a small table where there are stones, shells, and minerals laid out, and he touches each of the objects. He glances briefly at Axline and then hides under the table. While Dibs is hiding, the other students gather around the teacher for story time. Instead of joining his classmates, Dibs begins to crawl around the room, staying close to the wall.
Here, Axline gets a firsthand look at Dibs’s severe lack of social skills. Dibs shuts himself off from everyone else—he even meets open invitations to play with hostility. Even though Dibs is aware of the people and things around him, he’s distrustful of his surroundings, as demonstrated by his inability to look Axline in the eye. His desire to hide from the group also indicates a need to feel protected.
Themes
Dibs picks up a book and slowly examines every page—Axline can’t tell if he’s reading or just looking at the pictures. A teacher goes over to him and asks if Dibs wants to tell her about the book, but Dibs just hurls the book away and lies face down on the floor. Then, he gets up and continues to touch other objects in the room; the other students don’t pay any attention to him.
Dibs’s dramatic response to being asked about his book foreshadows Axline’s discovery that his parents are constantly evaluating him. Dibs has never been allowed to do what he wants at home without being questioned or doubted, and he’s afraid of this same dynamic playing out at school.
Themes
When it’s time for recess, Dibs says “no go out.” But when Axline puts on her coat and says that it’s a nice day outside, Dibs changes his mind and says “Dibs go out!” As Dibs makes his way outside, Axline notices that he walks clumsily—his coordination is very poor. While the other children play, Dibs goes off to a corner and scratches in the dirt with a stick. Axline and the teachers decide that, after the children’s rest period, Axline will take Dibs down to the playroom at the end of the hall if he agrees to go.
Again, Dibs appears to be developmentally stunted: he speaks in fragmented, babyish sentences and isn’t even able to walk properly. This demonstrates how Dibs’s emotional deprivation has completely obscured any intellectual capabilities he might have.
Themes
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After the rest period, Axline approaches Dibs and holds out her hand, asking him if he’ll come down to the playroom with her. Dibs hesitates, but then he takes Axline’s hand and walks with her to the playroom; Axline is surprised that he is willing to go. The room is full of toys, including a dollhouse, stuffed animals, cars, clay, paints, and a nursing bottle. Axline tells Dibs that they’ll spend an hour in the playroom, and that he can decide what he wants to do.
Axline demonstrates the importance of establishing trust. The fact that Dibs willingly goes with Axline illustrates his desire for a trusting relationship and a secure environment. Axline wants to provide this for him, which is why she establishes the parameters of their time together: they have an hour, and Dibs can do whatever he wants during their session. In this way, Axline sets up proper expectations for Dibs that head off any disappointment he might feel at the end of their session.
Themes
Axline sits in a chair and waits—she doesn’t want to imply any urgency for Dibs to do anything. Dibs stands in the middle of the room for a while, and then he tentatively walks around the room and touches the toys. He seems very unhappy. Dibs names each toy as he touches them—and each time he does this, Axline communicates her recognition of what he said. This is likely Dibs’s way to begin talking to her, if cautiously.
In this initial hour, Axline establishes two important aspects of Dibs’s play therapy sessions: first, she communicates to Dibs that she has no expectations for him. Instead, she wants Dibs to be able to go at his own pace and determine his activities for himself. Axline also follows along with Dibs’s naming exercise to acknowledge the way he perceives his surroundings, which helps to ground Digs in his environment and reassure him that he’s being heard.
Themes
Next, Dibs plops down on the floor, facing the dollhouse, and sits in silence. Axline doesn’t prod him—she knows he has a reason for what he is doing. Then Dibs says, “No lock doors,” over and over again. Axline observes aloud that Dibs doesn’t like doors to be locked, which makes Dibs very upset. He takes the walls off of the dollhouse, yelling, “Take away all walls, Dibs!”
Dibs’s intense dislike of locked doors hints that perhaps his parents have punished him by locking him in his room. The fact that he takes the walls away from the dollhouse also indicates his desire to be more accepted and connected to others, as walls both literally and figuratively cut people off from the outside world. Part of Axline’s strategy with Dibs is to help him forge the interpersonal connections that he clearly wants.
Themes
Axline tells Dibs when there are five minutes left in the hour, but Dibs doesn’t move. After five minutes pass, Axline says that it is time to go. She deliberately doesn’t ask Dibs if he had a good time, so that he doesn’t have to evaluate the experience. Dibs takes Axline’s hand, and they walk halfway down the hall. When the door to Dibs’s classroom is in view, Axline asks if he can go the rest of the way to the room alone. He says yes and walks to the room by himself. Axline does this in the hope that Dibs will gradually become more self-sufficient; she also wants to communicate her confidence in his abilities. Axline notes that when Dibs gets to the door, he almost looks pleased with himself. Axline then waves goodbye to Dibs as he walks through the classroom door.
Axline begins to build up mutual trust between herself and Dibs. She continues to establish secure parameters around their sessions, stating when they have five minutes left in order to help Dibs accept the reality that he has to return to class. And just as Axline wants Dibs to trust her, she also wants to illustrate her faith in him. Dibs’s smile after he walks back to the classroom by himself indicates that Axline’s confidence in him actually helps build his own confidence.
Themes
Axline explains that one of her objectives is to help Dibs achieve emotional independence. She doesn’t want him to become too dependent on her; instead, she wants to make sure that he can develop inner security. It’s clear to her why the teachers and other staff members have not written Dibs off yet—he is a courageous child.
Axline has genuine empathy for Dibs—by recognizing that Dibs a courageous child, she is actively choosing to see the good in him. Much like Dibs’s teachers want the best for him, Axline wants to help him overcome his emotional distance from other people and find security within himself.
Themes
