Dibs in Search of Self: Personality Development in Play Therapy (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Excluding the initial session in the school play therapy room, she only had 17 hours with him, perhaps an illustration of Clarke and Clarke’s observation that the greater the adversity, the more rapid the initial recovery from it. Neill, A S (1962) Summerhill: a radical approach to education London: Victor Gollancz Originally published 1960 Summerhill: a radical approach to child rearing New York: Hart See also Children Webmag July 2009 In an Author’s Note she adds that, when Dibs’s IQ was measured shortly after the sessions had been completed, it had been found to be 168 and that all the words in the book are those of Dibs and his mother. She concludes, “A mother who is respected and accepted with dignity can also be sincerely expressive when she knows that she will not be criticized or blamed” (p. 186). Discussion

He had then asked to go to the office where he had looked up ‘yeast’ in the dictionary, written a Morse code message which he had also written on another card in the card file, had told her what other presents he had received and had thanked her for her birthday card. In Chapter 4 she recalls that it was several weeks before the consent form arrived while Dibs had carried on as usual. When he had arrived for the first session, she had taken him to the playroom, which was more attractive than the one at school but with the same equipment. Dibs’s mother had influenced the school board to accept him but had refused the offer of professional help; his father was a well-known scientist and his younger sister a ‘spoiled brat.’ With other parents complaining after Dibs had scratched another child, his mother had been told that the school was thinking of excluding him and there had been a case conference to which Miss A (as Dibs called her) had been invited. The staff were obviously captivated by Dibs and had agreed to her suggestion of play therapy. In Chapter 23 she recounts how, after the summer holidays, his mother had telephoned to book another session. He had talked to the secretaries first before going to the office and, finding that she had moved the other cards into another box leaving just the cards he had created in the box, he had written another card saying, “Goodbye”. Then he had gone into the playroom where he had turned on the water, poured yellow paint on floor, decided that she was “the lady of the wonderful playroom”, smashed the baby’s bottle in pieces, played with various things, put the doll family in the doll’s house living room, asked about other children visiting the playroom and, looking out of the window, had asked to go and see the church across the road. He had finished the session by painting and had said how much he would miss her over the summer, a sentiment she had reciprocated.But she was now anxious that he was “too unusual” and wondered if he was schizophrenic; they had sent his sister away to school so that they could concentrate on him. She had admitted that she had taken things out on Dibs because of the strained relationship with her husband, with both of them fighting to avoid admitting guilt for Dibs’s condition. But now both parents’ feelings had changed.

Haley received a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and honed her sifting and winnowing skills at The Daily Cardinal. She previously covered politics for The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, investigated exotic pet ownership for Wisconsin Watch, and blogged for some of your favorite reality stars.

He had then made an impossible demand of the mother doll, shouting at and threatening it before breaking off to play tenderly with the sister doll and talking about school and the things he had made at school for the members of the family. In Chapter 3 she describes her visit to his mother the following day. She had been let into a drawing room where tea had been served but there had been no sign that it was ‘lived in’. His mother had said that she did not expect any change in Dibs and had offered him as raw data for study. She had also suggested using Dibs’s playroom but Miss A had insisted on using the child guidance centre even though his mother had offered her a higher fee if she had used Dibs’s playroom. She had given his mother a consent form to record the interviews and accepted his mother’s insistence that she would not be coming to the sessions. His mother had commented that his sister was a ‘perfect child’.