Dibs In Search of Self by Virginia M. Axline is a book about a boy who appears to be suffering from an unknown mental illness. The book covers how his behavior is misconstrued by everyone and how play therapy revealed what the real issues were. There are many concepts in this book that can be applied to TREAT Riding, such as, remembering that appearances can be deceiving, sometimes people need time to become comfortable, and acting out does not mean that someone is bad or is to be avoided. In Dibs In Search of Self we see Dibs in a classroom setting. While Dibs is in the classroom, we see he is unhelpful and sometimes unresponsive. The teachers are clearly frustrated and seem to have lost all hope and expectations for Dibs. They treat him
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They treated him as an issue rather than a human being. In TREAT we have many clients who are verbally unresponsive. This book helped me to see that people I may have thought of as unable to speak are quite capable but choose not to. There are a few riders that I thought at a beginning of a ride couldn’t speak at all but half way through the ride started having small conversations. There are other riders I thought couldn’t speak for an entire ride and it wasn’t until their next appointment that they began talking. It’s important not to assume something based on behavior. Dibs was also very perceptive even if he didn’t share that knowledge. I learned this on one of the first few rides. I was hadn’t slept very much the night before and I came to class. I thought I was hiding the fact that I felt very tired but the rider asked me within a few minutes of walking if something was wrong. Sometimes the riders are having a bad day. Dibs also had moments where he reverted back to his former behavior when he was uncomfortable environment or with certain people. Sometimes the riders become uncomfortable. Haley Thackerson is a rider I’ve seen this with. Haley becomes annoyed by certain sounds sometimes. When a thunderstorm rolled in she seemed very annoyed the whole time and wanted to take her helmet off and get down. On other rides she seems to enjoy herself. Haley is not the only rider I have seen this
They treated him as an issue rather than a human being. In TREAT we have many clients who are verbally unresponsive. This book helped me to see that people I may have thought of as unable to speak are quite capable but choose not to. There are a few riders that I thought at a beginning of a ride couldn’t speak at all but half way through the ride started having small conversations. There are other riders I thought couldn’t speak for an entire ride and it wasn’t until their next appointment that they began talking. It’s important not to assume something based on behavior. Dibs was also very perceptive even if he didn’t share that knowledge. I learned this on one of the first few rides. I was hadn’t slept very much the night before and I came to class. I thought I was hiding the fact that I felt very tired but the rider asked me within a few minutes of walking if something was wrong. Sometimes the riders are having a bad day. Dibs also had moments where he reverted back to his former behavior when he was uncomfortable environment or with certain people. Sometimes the riders become uncomfortable. Haley Thackerson is a rider I’ve seen this with. Haley becomes annoyed by certain sounds sometimes. When a thunderstorm rolled in she seemed very annoyed the whole time and wanted to take her helmet off and get down. On other rides she seems to enjoy herself. Haley is not the only rider I have seen this