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It is a tragedy — a great tragedy. But Dibs? Well, he is just mentally retarded. He was born that way. But I cannot come in for any interviews or questioning.” She glanced at me again. She looked terrified at the thought of any interviewing for herself.
He needed to develop strength to cope with his world, but that strength had to come from within him and he had to experience personally his ability to cope with his world as it was. Any meaningful changes for Dibs would have to come from within him. We could not hope to make over his external world.
I did not want to do anything that might imply criticism of their behavior — or to be either supportive or rejecting of mother or child. So it seemed that to leave the scene without getting personally involved would be a better procedure.
A child gets his feelings of security from predictable and consistent and realistic limitations. I had hoped to help Dibs differentiate between his feelings and his actions. He seemed to have achieved a bit of this. I also hoped to communicate to him the fact that this one hour was only a part of his existence, that it could not and should not take precedence over all other relationships and experiences, that all the time between the weekly sessions was important, too. The value of any successful therapeutic experience, in my opinion, depends upon the balance that is maintained between
what the individual brings into the sessions and what he takes out. If the therapy becomes the predominant and controlling influence in the individual’s daily life, then I would have serious doubts as to its effectiveness.
that whenever he approached any kind of emotional reference he retreated to a demonstration of his ability to read. Perhaps he felt safer in manipulating intellectual concepts about things, rather than probing any deeper into feelings about himself that he could not accept with ease.
wanted him to feel and experience his total self in our relationship — and not to confine it to any one kind of behavior.
“I will finger paint, play in the sand, and have a tea party,” he said. “You are planning what you want to do during the rest of our hour?” I said.
In my opinion, the therapeutic value of this kind of psychotherapy is based upon the child’s experiencing himself as a capable, responsible person in a relationship that tries to communicate to him two basic truths: that no one ever really knows as much about any human being’s inner world as does the individual himself; and that responsible freedom grows and develops from inside the person. The child must first learn self-respect and a sense of dignity that grows out of his increasing self-understanding before he can learn to respect the personalities and rights and differences of others.
Dibs had a knack of introducing safe, inanimate objects as subjects for his conversations that he seemed to use as a defensive shield when something bothered him.
He was upset because the toys were not as he had left them. He had asked that they not be moved when he left the last time, but no promises and no explanations had been given him. This was purposely avoided because it seemed important for Dibs, as all children, to learn by experience that no part of his world is static and controllable. Now that he had encountered concrete evidence of his changing world it would be important to work with his reactions to it — not with reassurance, not with lengthy explanations or apologies, not with words, words, words, thrown at him as a substitute, but with
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What would ultimately help Dibs the most was not the sand mountain, not the powerful, little plastic duck, but the feeling of security and adequacy that they symbolized in the creation he had built last week.
I hoped that he could experience within himself confidence and adequacy as he coped now with his disappointment and with the realization that things outside ourselves change — and many times we have little control over those elements, but if we learn to utilize our inner resources, we carry our security around with us.
Then the expression in his voice changed to a gay and lilting tone and he said, “Take your hat and coat off, Dibs. It’s cold in here.”
There is nothing here alone!”
I was interested in the remark Dibs had made about the rabbit at school. This indicated that
Dibs, even though not an active, participating member of the group, was observing, learning, thinking, drawing conclusions as he crawled around on the edge of things.
And to think that it had grown and flourished, even though it had been driven undercover into the wilderness of his anxiety by his loneliness and fear. But now he had waded into his fear and was growing strong with the certainties he discovered. He was exchanging his anger and fear and anxiety for hope and confidence and gladness. His sadness and sense of defeat were thawing out.
The teachers should take heart. We never know how much of what we present to children is accepted by them, each in his own way, and becomes some part of the experiences with which they learn to cope with their worlds.
Dibs had learned this, too. Read everything in sight, display this skill when confronted by uncomfortable emotional reactions, dodge any head-on confrontation of a feeling. It was protective behavior.
I’ll take my things off.” He removed his hat, coat, leggings without any help, walked over, hung them on the doorknob.
“Yes,” said Dibs. “It’s up to me.” He went over to the easel. “I’ll take off the lids and I’ll put a brush in each color. Now I’ll put them in order. Red. Orange. Yellow. Blue. Green,” he said. He glanced back at me. “Some things are up to me. Others are not,” he commented, briskly.
“Sand is getting into my shoes,” he observed. “So, I’ll take off my shoes.” He took off one shoe. He pushed his foot down under the sand. Then he turned over and lay face down in the sand, rubbed his cheeks against the sand, stuck out his tongue and tasted the sand. He gritted the sand between his teeth. He looked up at me.
“Oh, I hate — hate — hate,” he sang. “I hate the walls and the doors that lock and the people who shove you in. I hate the tears and the angry words and I’ll kill them all with my little hatchet and hammer their bones and spit on them.” He reached down in the sand, picked up a toy soldier, pounded it with the rubber hatchet, spit on it. “I spit in your face. I spit in your eye. I gouge your head down deep in the sand,” he sang. His voice rang out, sweetly and clearly. “And the birds do fly from the east to the west and it is a bird that I want to be. Then I’ll fly away over the walls, out the
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guess I am sure. Okay. I’ll go, now. And I just hope that doctor sticks his needle in Dorothy and I hope he hurts her until she screams and screams. And inside me I’ll laugh and be glad she feels the hurt. And I’ll pretend like it doesn’t bother me at all. Goodbye. I’ll see you next Thursday.”
retreating from the burial of “Papa” by this intellectual discourse. I would go along with him. It would take time for him to work through these feelings about his father. If he seemed to feel that he was getting in over his head, if he seemed to be a little frightened by what he had just played out, and if he sought for himself a retreat into the safety of a discussion about some material things — like clocks — I would not rush him into any probing of his feelings. He had already made some very concise, affective statements in his play.
“What did you say when your papa told you about the pussywillows?” I asked, hoping to pick up another fragment of understanding. “I didn’t say anything,” Dibs replied. “I just listened.”
Asking questions in therapy would be so helpful if anyone ever answered them accurately. But no one ever does. I often wondered if there had been any changes in Dibs’ behavior at school. Apparently, there had not been any very noticeable changes, because the teachers had not reported any. That had been our agreement. But Dibs was learning many things in school, at home, everywhere he went, even though he might not behave in such a way that his learning could be evaluated or tested.
“I would say that it means a chance to come here and play and talk just about any way you want to,” I said. “It’s a time when you can be the way you want to be. A time you can use any way you want to use it. A time when you can be you.” That was the best explanation I could come up with then.
According to all the existing learning theories, he should not have been able to have achieved any of these skills without having first mastered verbal language and without having had appropriate background experiences. Nevertheless, Dibs did possess these skills to an advanced degree.
Then he spoke in a sharp voice. “Get in line, cow. Straighten up. You heard me speak to you. Don’t act like such a stupid idiot!”
He seemed to be more at ease in his relationship with his mother. There were indications that Dibs was being treated with more consideration, understanding, and respect at home. Even “Papa” seemed to be emerging as more of a person. But were they changing in their behavior towards Dibs? Or had Dibs changed in his capacity to relate to his mother and father so that he could receive their advances toward him more naturally?
But why did he still maintain these two completely different types of behavior — one so gifted and superior, the other so woefully deficient?
“Oh red, angry paint.
Oh paint that scowls. Oh blood so red. Oh hate. Oh mad. Oh fear. Oh noisy fights and smeary red. Oh hate. Oh blood. Oh tears.”
“Oh mean colored yellow,” he said. “Oh angry, mean color. Oh, bars on windows to keep out the tree. Oh door with the lock and the turned key. I hate you, yellow. Mean old color. Color of prisons. Color of being lonely and afraid. Oh mean-colored yellow.”
In this play, Dibs was expressing a desire to be one with other children.
If there is any more fussing, you will go to your room. I will — lock you — in your room.”
“Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” he cried.
Dibs had successfully weathered this storm. He had discovered a strength within himself to cope with his hurt feelings.
This was quite different from his usual quiet entrance.
“He can explain it to you,” his mother said. “In fact, I’m beginning to think he has all the answers.” There was an unmistakable note of pride in her voice.
Perhaps this retreat to baby talk was a relief from the pressure of expectations that the birthday gift suggested to him.
“People are mean so I don’t talk to them. But I speak to the truck. I say goodbye to the truck.”
Listen to me You stupid child.
“Can’t you learn anything? Or do you know and you just won’t answer me?”
He stood in front of me sucking on the bottle, looking steadily at me. “You do not call me stupid,” he said. “I say help, you help. I say I don’t know, you know. I say I can’t, you can.”
Today I have planned the things I must do.”
Dibs was off again into the safe world of his intellectualism. The microscope was a thing. There was no need to fear this object. There were no feelings tangled up with it.
“I weep because I feel again the hurt of doors closed and locked against me,” he sobbed. I put my arm around him.
