Chromotherapy

Chromotherapy
Intervention
MeSH	D016500

Energy medicine
Acupuncture Energy (esotericism) Energy medicine Polarity therapy Reiki Shiatsu Therapeutic touch
NCCAM classifications
Alternative Medical Systems Mind-Body Intervention Biologically Based Therapy Manipulative Methods Energy Therapy
See also
Alternative medicine

Chromotherapy, sometimes called color therapy/colour therapy, colorology or cromatherapy, is a complementary medicine method. It is said that a therapist trained in chromotherapy can use light in the form of color to balance "energy" wherever a person's body be lacking, whether on physical, emotional, spiritual, or mental levels. The practice has been labelled pseudoscientific by some of its critics.

Color therapy is unrelated to light therapy, a scientifically-proven form of medical treatment for seasonal affective disorder and a small number of other conditions, and photobiology, the scientific study of the effects of light on living organisms.

History

Avicenna (980-1037), believed color to be of vital importance in diagnosis and treatment, discussed chromotherapy in The Canon of Medicine. He wrote that "Color is an observable symptom of disease" and also developed a chart that related color to the temperature and physical condition of the body. His view was that red moved the blood, blue or white cooled it, and yellow reduced muscular pain and inflammation.

Robert Hunt, a scientist from the United Kingdom, wrote "Researches on Light in its chemical relations" in 1844, in which he described the influences on plant growth of selected applications of light.^{[citation needed]}

American Civil War General Augustus Pleasonton conducted his own experiments and published his book The Influence Of The Blue Ray Of The Sunlight And Of The Blue Color Of The Sky, published in 1876 about how the color blue can improve the growth of crops and livestock and can help heal diseases in humans. This led to a birth of modern chromotherapy, influencing scientist Dr. S. Pancoast and Edwin Dwight Babbitt to conduct experiments and publish, respectively, "Blue and Red Light; or, Light and Its Rays as Medicine" and "The Principles of Light and Color".

In 1933, Hindu scientist Dinshah P. Ghadiali published "The Spectro Chromemetry Encyclopaedia", a work on color therapy. Ghadiali claimed to have discovered the scientific principles which explain why and how the different colored rays have various therapeutic effects on organisms. He believed that colors represent chemical potencies in higher octaves of vibration, and for each organism and system of the body there is a particular color that stimulates and another that inhibits the work of that organ or system. Ghadiali also thought that by knowing the action of the different colors upon the different organs and systems of the body, one can apply the correct color that will tend to balance the action of any organ or system that has become abnormal in its functioning or condition.

Throughout the 19th century "color healers" claimed colored glass filters could treat many diseases including constipation and meningitis.

A New Age conceptualisation of the chakras of Indian body culture and their positions in the human body

Practitioners of ayurvedic medicine believe the body has seven "chakras," which some claim are 'spiritual centers', and which are held to be located along the spine. In New Age thought each of the chakras is associated with a single color of the visible light spectrum, along with a function and organ or bodily system. According to this view, the chakras can become imbalanced and result in physical diseases but it is believed that these imbalances can be corrected through application of the appropriate color. The purported colors and their associations are described as:

Color	Chakra	Chakra location	Alleged function	Associated system
Red	First	Base of the spine	Grounding and Survival	Gonads, kidneys, spine, sense of smell
Orange	Second	Lower abdomen, genitals	Emotions, sexuality	Urinary tract, circulation, reproduction
Yellow	Third	Solar plexus	Power, ego	Stomach, liver, gall bladder, pancreas
Green	Fourth	Heart	Love, sense of responsibility	Heart, lungs, thymus
Blue	Fifth	Throat	Physical and spiritual communication	Throat, ears, mouth, hands
Indigo	Sixth	Just above the center of the brow, middle of forehead	Forgiveness, compassion, understanding	Eye, pineal glands
Violet	Seventh	Crown of the head	Connection with universal energies, transmission of ideas and information	Pituitary gland, the central nervous system and the cerebral cortex

Criticism

Chromotherapy has been deemed pseudoscience by its critics, who state that the falsifiability and verifiability conditions necessary to deem an experiment valid are not being met, and therefore that it has not been proven that introducing colors is the key element in the healing process which is healing its patients. Chromotherapy has also been criticized for selection bias in statistics of success for the treatment. It has also been suggested that the placebo effect may be a key factor in the healing of some patients, which could be tested for by a chromotherapy control group.

Photobiology, the term for the contemporary scientific study of the effects of light on humans, has replaced the term chromotherapy in an effort to separate it from its roots in Victorian mysticism and to strip it of its associations with symbolism and magic. Light therapy is a specific treatment approach using high intensity light to treat specific sleep, skin and mood disorders.

See also

• Colorpuncture

External links

• MeSH Color+Therapy