Psychologist’s view
According to clinical psychologist Bijal Oza, the visual representation of good and evil always grabs the attention of children in the age group of 3-8, as they are easily able to discriminate between what’s right and what’s not, from an illustration or picture. Oza, who has worked with children at trauma centres in the US and India, has used art therapy a lot in her projects. “Little kids have a limited vocabulary and very often, are not able to express themselves verbally when they are undergoing trauma or abuse of any kind. I found that art therapy helped them draw figures and express better. In many cases, we were able to catch that the child was a victim of abuse of domestic violence at home,” said Oza, global director of counselling at the SP Jain Institute of Global Management. Children are able to distinguish well with the help of animation, colours and sketch. “I found pictures helped communicate some basic concepts in a very simple manner, as against the complexity of verbal expression. Also, the colours helped them calm down,” she added.