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
The next week, when Dibs arrives for his ninth session, he comments on Axline’s colorful dress—a departure from his normal, quiet entrance. Dibs’s mother tells Axline that he wanted to bring one of his birthday presents in for his session. She says that Dibs can explain the gift, and she notes with pride that she’s beginning to think Dibs has “all the answers.”
Dibs continues to show progress in each session. He is more openly interactive with others, and he is also taking the initiative to do what he wants to do by bringing in his gift. As a result, his mother, too, is forging an emotional connection with her son and putting her faith in his intelligence by noting he has “all the answers.” This underscores the benefits of this non-judgmental therapy for the family as a whole.
Themes
Back in the playroom, Dibs pulls out his present: a Morse code set. He shows Axline how he can type out messages with it. As he types, a truck passes by the window, and he says, “You look at truck, Dibs.” Axline posits that this reversion to baby talk is a relief from the pressure of his birthday gift.
Even as Dibs makes progress in the therapy sessions, there are still times in which his emotional immaturity outweighs his intellectual capacity, and he reverts to less grammatical speaking patterns. Giving a Morse code set to a six year-old suggests that his parents have high aspirations for his intelligence, and even as Dibs enjoys his gift, he senses that the gift is putting pressure on him, which stresses him out.
Themes
As the truck passes, Dibs leans out the window to look at it. Two college girls walk by and say hello to Dibs, but he doesn’t respond. One of them tries a few more times, but he continues to be silent. She asks if Dibs can talk, and he still doesn’t say anything. Angrily, he returns to the room and says, “Don’t want to say hello! […] Will not talk!” Axline comments that the girls hurt his feelings and he doesn’t want to talk to them. He says people are mean, but the truck is nice.
Dibs’s exchange with the college girl is another example of the weight of expectations, even if they don’t come from his parents. Because Dibs chooses not to respond to the girl, she judges him harshly—a contrast to Dibs’s experience with Axline, who never pressures him to speak or berates him if he doesn’t. And again, this inability to live up to other people’s social expectations makes Dibs revert to less sophisticated speaking patterns.
Themes
Next, Dibs goes over to the sandbox and buries a soldier in it. Then he says that he wants to bake cookies to take his mind off his worries. He acts out baking cookies, precisely working through the directions from memory. As Dibs waits for the cookies to bake, he sits in the sandbox and sings about the cookies baking. When he starts to count in the song, he reenacts his parents trying to teach him to count: whenever he is unable to remember the numbers, they call him a “stupid child,” but when he gets it right, he gets a cookie.
Dibs continues to work through his feelings about his parents’ expectations. It is clear that he has incredible intelligence, since he is a six-year-old who can remember the precise directions for baking cookies. Yet at the same time, Dibs’s song suggests that whenever he isn’t able to convey his intelligence exactly how his parents expect, they criticize him harshly for it and he shuts down.
Themes
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Dibs lays down in the sand and sucks on the bottle for a while, but then he gets up and says that he’s not a baby and he never was one. He puts on his shoes, commenting that if he needs or wants Axline’s help, she will help him. Then Dibs refills the nursing bottle and asks for help replacing the top. He says that Axline never calls him stupid—that she just helps him. She asks how that makes him feel, and he simply says, “I feel.”
Dibs continues to experience the struggle of finding himself. He doesn’t want to seem like a baby, yet he also enjoys being cared for at times. Much of the trust that he and Axline share is based on this idea: she doesn’t judge him and simply allows him to be and feel what he wants, as he confirms here.
Themes
Dibs returns to the sink, splashing around and happily making a mess. He then notices a can of scouring powder, places some in his hand, and puts it in his mouth. Axline exclaims that the powder isn’t good to taste, and he looks at her coldly. He asks how he can know what the powder tastes like without tasting it. Axline replies that she doesn’t know, but that the powder isn’t good to swallow. Dibs then spits the powder in the sink and rinses his mouth, as she instructs. Axline can tell her reaction upset him, so she apologizes. saying that she just didn’t like to see Dibs take a mouthful of the powder.
The incident with the scouring powder provides a contrast to Axline and Dibs’s usual dynamic. Because Axline judges Dibs in this moment and tells him that he can’t do something, he feels that she doesn’t trust him and gets upset. In contrast to the way her non-judgment usually makes him more open, her judgment shuts him down.
Themes
Dibs then fills the sink with dishes and glass bottles. He drops one of the bottles and it hits the faucet. He says it might break and cut him, and he asks if Axline is afraid for him. Axline replies that Dibs knows how to take care of himself, having learned her lesson.
Here Axline tries to reverse course from the incident with the scouring powder, once again emphasizing Dibs’s self-determination and allowing him to take the lead in his actions without judgment.
Themes
After washing the dishes, Dibs sucks on the nursing bottle and says that he’s not very old—he’s only six. He then says that he wants to go down to Axline’s office, and he takes his message set with him. Once there, Dibs types out a message and decodes it: “I am Dibs.” His next message is “I like Dibs. You like Dibs. We both like Dibs.” He puts the messages in Axline’s index card file and asks her to keep only his card and her card in the box.
Dibs continues to shift between capable and infantile behavior. Whereas before he said that he was never a baby, now he emphasizes that he’s still quite young and permits himself to suck on the bottle. Still, Dibs is learning to accept himself in all forms, which shows when he writes a message about liking himself.
Themes
Dibs then says he liked his birthday presents this year, including the birthday card Axline sent him. It’s almost time to go, and he decides to sit for his final three minutes. As he sits peacefully, he says, “I’m being happy.” When the time is up, he picks up his code set, says goodbye, and leaves.
This is a major development for Dibs. Rather than constantly being on alert and anxious, or wishing to stay with Axline for longer than he needs, Dibs is calm, relaxed, and happy. This is another reinforcement of the benefits therapy has provided and the new security Dibs has found in himself.
Themes
