E-Cube Lab.
The E-Cube Lab functions as an educational preventative space unlike a typical counselling or therapy centre/room. Here, children, parents, teachers, school leaders, individual learners, and school-based counsellors, can all work to enhance emotional skills together, allowing them to act to prevent emotional challenges before they develop into mental health challenges. At a time when schools across the world focused on mental well-being and overall personality development on each child, the E-Cube Lab offers an evidence-based and scalable framework that could redefine how future-ready education is delivered in India.
Founded by psychologist and educator Dr. Chinu Agrawal, Feeling Minds®ï¸ is one of India's pioneering organisations dedicated to advancing emotional well-being. It focuses on redefining emotional education while nurturing emotionally resilient, self-aware and future-ready generations
1. What inspired you to create the E-Cube Lab, and why did you feel India needed a dedicated experiential space for emotional education?
I have been working in the field of emotional education since 2016, and my work as a psychologist and counsellor has given me a very close view of what children and young people struggle with, anxiety, anger, stress, self-doubt, relationship difficulties, communication challenges, impulsive decisions and an increasing inability to cope with everyday pressures. What concerns me is that we often begin talking about these issues only after they become problems. We teach children mathematics because we want them to solve problems. We teach science because we want them to understand the world around them. But when it comes to understanding their own emotions, thoughts, behaviour and relationships, the very things that influence how they experience life, we often expect them to simply figure it out. For me, that gap was the inspiration behind E-Cube Lab. Emotional education cannot be taught like a chapter in a textbook. It has to be experienced. A child needs to experience frustration, make a choice, understand the consequence, reflect on what happened, recognise the emotion behind it and discover a better way of responding. That learning becomes meaningful because it is connected to an experience. So, E-Cube Lab is our attempt to move emotional education from "knowing" to "doing." It is a dedicated space where children can safely explore their emotions, thoughts, beliefs, choices and relationships through carefully designed experiences, and practise these skills before life demands them in difficult situations.
2. How is the E-Cube Lab different from conventional counselling or therapy spaces in schools, and what do you hope children experience differently when they enter the Lab?
The simplest way I would explain it is this: Therapy helps us address a problem. E-Cube Lab helps us build the capacities that can prevent many problems from becoming overwhelming in the first place. Counselling and therapy are extremely important. When a child is struggling with a specific emotional, behavioural or psychological concern, professional intervention is essential. But we also need to ask ourselves, what can we do before a child reaches that point? That is where E-Cube comes in. It is a preventive and developmental approach, not a replacement for counselling or therapy. Through this space we want children to develop the awareness, emotional vocabulary, thinking skills, interpersonal skills and coping strategies that can help them navigate life's challenges more effectively. The Lab is also deliberately designed as a non-judgemental, experiential space. Concepts are brought alive through activities, simulations, games, storytelling, discussions, role plays, props, challenges and reflection. Every experience follows a structured process: Experience â Understandâ Learn â Apply â Reflect-> Transform. We create experiences that allow them to discover, question and practise for themselves. So, when a child walks into the E-Cube Lab, I want them to feel: "This is a space where I can understand myself."
3. The E-Cube Lab draws from approaches such as CBT, ACT, REBT and emotional awareness. How have you translated these psychological frameworks into activities and experiences that children can actually engage with and practise?
At Feeling Minds, we believe that psychology should not remain confined to clinical rooms or academic textbooks. It should be something children can see, experience, understand and practise in their everyday lives. What makes the E-Cube Lab unique is our use of specially designed experiential apparatus , developed from established psychological principles such as CBT, ACT, REBT and Positive Psychology. These concepts have been translated into simple, interactive experiences that children can understand and relate to. For example, instead of teaching children the CBT model of thoughts, emotions and behaviour as a theory, an E-Cube apparatus can place them in a situation where they experience how a change in thinking can influence their emotional response and subsequent behaviour. Similarly, principles from ACT such as acceptance, values and psychological flexibility are translated into activities where children have to make choices, respond to challenges and reflect on what matters to them. The key difference is that we don't teach the framework first and then ask children to apply it. We create an experience first and use reflection to help them discover the psychological principle behind it. Every experience connects the concept to situations children encounter in everyday life, friendships, failure, competition, anger, decision-making, self-confidence, peer pressure and other real-life challenges. In this way, the E-Cube Lab becomes a bridge between psychological science and everyday life, making complex psychological principles easier to understand, remember and practise. Our aim is not simply for children to know psychology, but to develop the ability to use psychological skills when life actually demands them.
4. You have already reached over five lakh students and trained thousands of teachers and mental health professionals. How does the E-Cube Lab build on Feeling Minds' work of the last decade, and what gap are you hoping to address now?
For more than a decade, Feeling Minds has been working towards making emotional education accessible to children, educators and families. We have reached thousands of students and worked extensively with teachers, parents and mental health professionals. The E-Cube Lab is the next step in that journey. For me, the important shift is from "learning about emotions" to "having a dedicated space to experience this learning." Just as a science laboratory gives a child the opportunity to experiment rather than only read about science, we wanted to create a dedicated space where children could experiment with their own thoughts, emotions, behaviours and relationships. We also wanted children to have a physical and psychological space that communicates something important: emotional wellbeing deserves a place in school. The gap we are trying to address is the lack of structured, evidence-informed and experiential opportunities where emotional competencies can be repeatedly practised. A one-time workshop can create awareness. But emotional competence develops through repeated experience, reflection, practice and application.
5. What changes or outcomes would you like to see in students, teachers and parents after sustained engagement with the Lab?
I would like the impact of E-Cube to be visible not just in the Lab, but in the way, children think, feel, behave and relate in everyday life. For students, the journey begins with self-awareness, understanding their emotions, thoughts, strengths and triggers. From there, they develop practical skills such as emotional regulation, decision-making, problem-solving, communication, empathy, resilience and responsible behaviour. These skills help them handle academic pressure, navigate relationships, respond to setbacks and make more thoughtful choices. For teachers, E-Cube provides a better understanding of the emotional and behavioural needs behind student behaviour, helping them respond with greater awareness rather than simply correcting behaviour. For parents, it creates a common language around emotions and life skills, helping them move from reacting to behaviour to understanding what the child may be experiencing and what skill the child needs to develop. Over time, the goal is not simply to create children who know more about emotions. It is to create children who can use that understanding when life gets difficult.That, for me, is the real measure of E-Cube's impact.
6. Looking ahead, do you see the E-Cube Lab becoming a scalable model for schools across India? What would it take to make emotional education as integral to the school curriculum as subjects like mathematics and science?
Absolutely, I believe emotional education needs to become a fundamental part of education, not an occasional activity conducted when time permits. We don't question why children need mathematics, science or language. We understand that these are essential capabilities for life. I believe we need to develop the same understanding about self-awareness, emotional regulation, relationships, decision-making, resilience and psychological wellbeing. But for that to happen, emotional education cannot remain limited to annual workshops or motivational talks. It needs to be systematic, age-appropriate, evidence-informed and experiential, with continuity across the child's school journey. That is where I see the E-Cube Lab becoming scalable. We have already developed a structured framework, experiences and scientific approaches that can be adapted to different age groups and school environments. The model can be implemented through dedicated E-Cube Labs within schools, trained facilitators and a structured curriculum of experiences. But infrastructure alone is not enough. We also need to build the capacity of teachers, involve parents and create a culture where talking about emotions is normal rather than something we do only when a child is struggling. My larger vision is that every child in India should have access to emotional education just as they have access to academic education. Because ultimately, education is not only about preparing a child to pass an examination. It is about preparing a human being to navigate life. And if we want children to be truly future-ready, emotional education cannot be an optional extra. It has to become part of the foundation.
