Establishing the Integrity of Self:
How can a psychologist's use of play therapy allow a child's submerged psyche to emerge and begin journeying toward a selfhood capable of expressing its own idiosyncratic needs and desires? In this classical account of child therapy, Dibs In Search of Self, Virginia M. Axline retells the tale of a young six year old boy's valiant struggle to establish his own identity despite his father and mother's damaging style of parenting. Axline's remarkable psychoanalytic intervention permits Dibs to discover himself in a space of security where he is neither too quickly judged, nor too excessively praised. It must be a space where he is foremost and so her trained commentary only repeats his intentions rather than critiquing them. Carefully Axline labors to create a safe haven for Dibs, a space of neutrality where his far-too-long suppressed identity can take its first faltering steps. Axline's amazing gift to Dibs grants him the chance to emerge victorious from the debilitating circumstances of his parents' rejection. Within the comfort zone which Axline carefully constructs for him in one-hour weekly play therapy sessions, Dibs slowly establishes his own identity, develops confidence, and is able to alter his psyche until it is sufficiently balanced to both express and manage his feelings. Dibs In Search of Self can be read upon multiple levels. On its primary level, it is the story of a boy struggling to emerge as his own person. Yet, on a deeper level, Axline explores the integrity of self, illustrating how we are all affected by the nuances in the behavior of those people surrounding us. Near the end of the book, Axline proudly comments that Dibs is a legend within military circles, representing the complete person, symbolizing all human values (216). To American youths stationed in Vietnam Dibs served almost as a talisman with one soldier phrasing the sentiment as "With Dibs here, we c...