Intelligence vs. Emotional and Social Skills Theme Analysis

Throughout Dibs’s early life, his teachers, psychiatrists, and parents have difficulty understanding his withdrawn, hostile, and at times infantile behavior. When author and psychologist Dr. Virginia Axline conducts play therapy sessions with Dibs, she observes that he actually has an impressive intellect—but at the same time, she notes that his social and emotional skills are severely lacking, to the point that people question his intelligence and believe he may be mentally disabled. Axline thus demonstrates how superior intelligence isn’t very valuable, nor can it be to be fully understood, without social and emotional skills; all three are necessary for a happy, well-rounded child.

When Axline first meets Dibs, Dibs’s intelligence is entirely obscured because of his emotional difficulties, illustrating how intelligence cannot thrive without social skills. When Dibs’s teachers first brief Axline about Dibs, they explain that, at times, he seems to be mentally disabled because of his withdrawn nature and temper tantrums. One of the teachers, Hedda, explains that Dibs often looks at books “as though he could read”—but whenever teachers approach him to ask about his books, he throws them away from himself. The teachers aren’t able to identify Dibs’s intelligence, which demonstrates that intelligence alone does not make a fully functioning child. Later, Dibs’s mother tells Axline that she constantly tested Dibs’s intelligence over the years but never really formed an emotional connection with him. Axline observes, “his intellectual abilities had been used to test him. They had become a barrier and a refuge from a world he feared. It had been defensive, self-protective behavior.” In this way, Dibs’s social skills and intelligence have always been at odds with each other: prioritizing one at the expense of the other has left Dibs feeling isolated and deprived. In Dibs’s play therapy sessions, Axline finds that whenever Dibs is confronted with stress, sadness, or anger, his language becomes confused, and he reverts to an infantile state, often sucking on a nursing bottle even though he’s five years old. One day, when Axline tells Dibs that he has to go home, he grows very upset. Axline notes, “Here was a child very capable of great intellectual achievement, whose abilities were dominated by his emotional disturbance.” In other words, it doesn’t matter that Dibs is smart—because he is unable to deal with his emotions, his intelligence remains under wraps.

Axline reinforces in her own notes that she doesn’t want to focus too much on Dibs’s intellectual abilities, because it’s more important to help him develop his social skills. When Axline learns how much pressure Dibs’s parents put on his intelligence, she notes, “This kind of exploitation of the child’s ability, to the exclusion of a balanced emotional life, could destroy him.” In starkest terms, she recognizes that fostering intelligence isn’t the only important factor in a child’s development. Axline even asserts this point when she discovers that Dibs is tempering his intelligence in class. After many sessions, she meets with Dibs’s teachers Hedda and Miss Jane for a progress report in school. They excitedly tell Axline that Dibs is now writing rudimentary sentences and painting very basic pictures. Axline is surprised by this, because she knows that Dibs can achieve a lot more. However, she understands that social development is more important for Dibs at this stage than making sure he displays his skills at reading and writing. She asks rhetorically, “What advantage is there in high intellectual achievement if it cannot be used constructively for the good of the individual and the good of others?” While Axline understands the importance of helping Dibs feel comfortable showing his capabilities, it is more important for him to first feel accepted by and connected to his classmates and teachers. Only by fostering these emotional and social connections can Dibs then grow comfortable expressing his intelligence.

Indeed, Dibs’s only fulfills his intellectual potential after he’s gained more emotional intelligence and social skills. In one of Dibs’s final sessions, after developing tools to help understand and cope with his social and emotional isolation, Dibs plays with a toy set that allows him to build his own city. He is excited to build “a world full of friendly people”—a far cry from the hostility he showed to others when he began his sessions. Axline describes how Dibs “[builds] a well-organized world, full of people and action. His plans showed high intelligence, a grasp of the whole as well as the details of his concepts. There was purpose, integration, creativity in his design.” She implies that these two things are tied: without Dibs’s improved social skills and his newfound excitement about interacting with others, he could not have displayed this intelligence.

Years later, when Dibs is 15 years old, Axline receives a note from a friend who teaches at a school for gifted boys that Dibs now attends. Axline’s friend explains that Dibs wrote a letter on behalf of a peer who was caught cheating and dismissed from the school. Dibs passionately argues that his friend was only trying to verify his work’s accuracy and that examinations should not be used to humiliate students who are simply trying to succeed. Axline’s friend says that Dibs is “a brilliant boy. Full of ideas. Concerned about everybody and everything. Very sensitive. A real leader.” This upholds Axline’s earlier assessment that intelligence isn’t very valuable unless it’s used constructively for the good of others. Here, Dibs uses his intellect to stand up for what is right on behalf of a friend: it is the combination of his intelligence and social skills that prove him to be a truly brilliant child.