Book review: Dibs: In search of self by Virginia M. Axline

In response to James Anglin’s challenge in this journal’s previous issue, to take an old book off the shelf and reread it, I immediately thought of Virginia Axline’s Dibs: In Search of Self. When I became an undergraduate psychology major over 50 years ago and wanted to begin to work under my mentor, Jerry Levin, it was prerequisite reading. Jerry knew Axline from Teachers College at Columbia University. As a practicing clinical psychologist and academic, Jerry was not particularly wedded to the specifics of Axline’s ‘play therapy’ method, but he thought Axline’s approach to interacting with children provided an ideal model for his students. I think he was right.