Author and clinical psychologist Dr. Virginia Axline visits a private school on New York’s Upper East Side to observe a five-year-old boy named Dibs. Dibs rarely interacts with others, and he often lashes out at his teachers and throws temper tantrums. The teachers have a hard time categorizing him: they think he might be mentally disabled, though at times he seems highly intelligent. He may even know how to read. After observing Dibs at school, Axline also meets with Dibs’s mother and father. His mother is cold and resigned to the situation—she doesn’t think that Dibs can be helped. Nevertheless, Dibs’s parents agree to bring him to weekly play therapy sessions with Axline.
During Dibs’s first few sessions, he is tentative and afraid. Axline is patient with Dibs, simply acknowledging what he’s doing rather than judging him. She doesn’t try to lead his activities; instead, she allows him to take the initiative. Axline also sets clear parameters for their meetings and empathizes with Dibs when he gets upset. With Axline’s help defining and expressing his anger and disappointment, Dibs is better able to cope with these emotions.
As Dibs continues his therapy, also begins to show his intelligence: he reads advanced words, fixes broken toys, and paints skillfully. Axline notes that Dibs uses his intelligence to avoid his emotions. At the same time, he often exhibits infantile behavior, like sucking on a nursing bottle or asking Axline for help taking off his hat and shoes. Over time, Dibs becomes more open about his feelings toward his family, expressing hostility and even violent thoughts toward his father, mother, and sister Dorothy as he plays.
After Dibs’s fourth session, Dibs’s mother meets with Axline to explain some of Dibs’s background, admitting that she’s never understood him and that she and her husband never planned on having children. When they began to think that Dibs was mentally disabled, they cut him off from the world because they were ashamed of him. A neurologist couldn’t find anything wrong with Dibs, and a psychiatrist told Dibs’s parents that they were problem, and that Dibs was emotionally deprived. Dibs’s mother acknowledges that Dibs does seem to be getting better: he doesn’t throw as many tantrums, and he talks more. Axline tells Dibs’s mother that she doesn’t think Dibs is mentally disabled. This reassures his mother, and Axline thinks that Dibs’s mother needs empathy and non-judgment just as much as Dibs does.
Over Dibs’s next few sessions, he seems happier. He also speaks with more sophisticated language and is more open about his thoughts—even though they are often still violent and hostile. Dibs tells Axline how much he likes the playroom where they have their sessions—it’s a place where he can just “be.” He also tells Axline about his grandmother and the family gardener, Jake, both of whom are kind to Dibs.
At his ninth session, Dibs pretends to hold a tea party with other children. When Dibs accidentally spills one of the cups, he harshly berates himself and calls himself stupid. Axline reassures him that it was just an accident, which helps Dibs gradually acknowledges that, while he may have been careless, he’s not stupid. The following week, Dibs plays with the dollhouse in the playroom and pretends to lock the doll family in the house. Then, he pretends that the doll family is trapped in a house fire. While Dibs does this, he sobs about all the times his parents have locked him in his room. After acknowledging these emotions, Dibs then pretends that the little boy doll rescues the rest of the family.
The following week, when Dibs’s mother picks him up, he exclaims excitedly that he loves his mother, which makes her cry. Dibs’s mother meets with Axline the next day, very touched by Dibs’s improvement and his expression of love. She thanks Axline for all the work she’s done, and she confesses that she always believed Dibs was intelligent. Dibs’s mother then recounts more of Dibs’s early childhood: she’d wanted to prove that Dibs could learn and that she could teach him. But this meant that his mother was constantly testing his abilities and failed to form a real bond with him. Axline then gets a call from Dibs’s teachers, Miss Jane and Hedda, who report that they have also seen an improvement in Dibs.
Toward the end of Dibs’s sessions, Axline observes that while Dibs still has some hostile feelings, he’s now able to work through them. After Dibs and Axline return from their summer vacation, Dibs requests one more play session. Axline notes that he has become completely relaxed, happy, and talkative. For their final session, Dibs says goodbye to the playroom and the objects in it. He says that the nursing bottle gave him comfort when he needed it—but then he hurls it against the radiator, and it breaks. Then, Dibs asks if they can go over to the church across the street, and Axline agrees to take him. Dibs is awestruck by the church’s beauty but a little afraid of the loud organ music. Back in the playroom, Dibs says a final goodbye to Axline.
Two and a half years later, Dibs and his family happen to move to Axline’s neighborhood, and they see each other on the street. Dibs remembers Axline, recalling that he was initially afraid during their sessions, but that he appreciated how Axline made him feel secure and allowed him to have fun. Axline observes that Dibs learned how to believe in himself, which freed him.
Years later, Axline’s friend, who teaches at a school for gifted boys, shows Axline a letter that 15-year-old Dibs wrote in the school newspaper, defending a friend who was caught cheating. The letter illustrates that Dibs isn’t just bright—he’s also morally upstanding and courageous.
Axline adds a final note to her book: a week after Dibs’s therapy sessions ended, Dibs tested with an IQ of 168 and a reading score that was years beyond his age and grade level. Axline concludes that because Dibs and his mother were both able to express themselves to Axline without fear of criticism, they became freer and better able to handle their emotions.
