abstract:Dibs in Search of Self is a story by clinical psychologist and author Virginia Axline published in 1964. It chronicles a series of play therapy sessions over a period of one year with an emotionally crippled boy who comes from a wealthy and highly educated family who, in spite of obvious signs that he is gifted, his mother and father perceive him as a "mental retarded", because he presents abnormal social behavior: "Dibs" continuously isolates himself (shuns social contact), rarely speaks, physically lashes out at his parents, sister, caretakers, and classmates at school (hitting, kicking, biting, etc.