A CASE STUDY ON THE USE OF ART THERAPY BASED INTERVENTION FOR OPPOSITIONAL DEFIANT DISORDER

Abstract

Art therapy is a creative therapy technique that uses art as the primary form of therapeutic expression and treatment. Both the process of therapy as well as reections on outcomes are therapeutic in nature. The paper presents the effect of art as a therapeutic intervention in a longitudinal case study conducted for a period of 8 months. A seven year old child, diagnosed as a case of Oppositional Deant Disorder (ODD) was brought for psychotherapeutic treatment by his parents. During the course of therapy, an effort was made to enhance the symbolic, imaginative and metalizing capacities by gradually increasing the range, depth and emotional richness of the art forms created by him. He was administered the Child Behavior Checklist thrice during the therapy; rstly as a pre-assessment before the beginning of the therapy, secondly after a period of 4 months and then after 8 months of therapy. The child showed signicant improvement in his scores on ODD items as testied by his parents. The follow up assessment showed a good maintenance of achieved improvements during the therapy. The study concludes in proposing the implementation of art based counseling and therapy as a treatment alternative for children with Oppositional Deant Disorders.