Test of time: Dibs: in search of self

The book, Dibs: In Search of Self, by Virginia Axline was first published in 1964. It is a session-by-session description of a relatively short therapeutic intervention with a troubled and imaginative child named Dibs. The book shows how the therapist and child work together and how the child changes. This article revisits the book from the perspective of the psychoanalytic thinking of a child psychotherapist. It describes the author's thoughts in re-reading the book, including the clinical content of the book and the motive for the writing of the book, and attempts to explore the contemporary relevance of this account in the context of the author's current working experience within the NHS.