Chromotherapy, sometimes called color therapy, colorology or cromatherapy, is an alternative medicine

Alternative medicine

Alternative medicine is any healing practice, "that does not fall within the realm of conventional medicine." It is based on historical or cultural traditions, rather than on scientific evidence....

 method. It is said that a therapist trained in chromotherapy can use color

Color

Color or colour is the visual perceptual property corresponding in humans to the categories called red, green, blue and others. Color derives from the spectrum of light interacting in the eye with the spectral sensitivities of the light receptors...

 and light

Light

Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that is visible to the human eye, and is responsible for the sense of sight. Visible light has wavelength in a range from about 380 nanometres to about 740 nm, with a frequency range of about 405 THz to 790 THz...

 to balance "energy" wherever a person's body be lacking, be it physical, emotional, spiritual, or mental. The practice has been labelled pseudoscientific

Pseudoscience

Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status...

 by its critics.

Color therapy is unrelated to light therapy

Light therapy

Light therapy or phototherapy consists of exposure to daylight or to specific wavelengths of light using lasers, light-emitting diodes, fluorescent lamps, dichroic lamps or very bright, full-spectrum light, usually controlled with various devices...

, a valid and proven form of medical treatment for seasonal affective disorder

Seasonal affective disorder

Seasonal affective disorder , also known as winter depression, winter blues, summer depression, summer blues, or seasonal depression, is a mood disorder in which people who have normal mental health throughout most of the year experience depressive symptoms in the winter or summer, spring or autumn...

 and a small number of other conditions.

History

Avicenna

Avicenna

Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sīnā , commonly known as Ibn Sīnā or by his Latinized name Avicenna, was a Persian polymath, who wrote almost 450 treatises on a wide range of subjects, of which around 240 have survived...

 (980-1037), who viewed color to be of vital importance in diagnosis

Medical diagnosis

Medical diagnosis refers both to the process of attempting to determine or identify a possible disease or disorder , and to the opinion reached by this process...

 and treatment

Therapy

This is a list of types of therapy .* Adventure therapy* Animal-assisted therapy* Aquatic therapy* Aromatherapy* Art and dementia* Art therapy* Authentic Movement* Behavioral therapy* Bibliotherapy* Buteyko Method* Chemotherapy...

, discussed chromotherapy in The Canon of Medicine

The Canon of Medicine

The Canon of Medicine is an encyclopedia of Galenic medicine in five books compiled by Ibn Sīnā and completed in 1025. It presents a clear and organized summary of all the medical knowledge of the time...

. He wrote that "Color is an observable symptom of disease" and also developed a chart that related color to the temperature

Temperature

Temperature is a physical property of matter that quantitatively expresses the common notions of hot and cold. Objects of low temperature are cold, while various degrees of higher temperatures are referred to as warm or hot...

 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. He further discussed the properties of colors for healing and was "the first to establish that the wrong color suggested for therapy would elicit no response in specific diseases." As an example, "he observed that a person with a nosebleed should not gaze at things of a brilliant red color and should not be exposed to red light because this would stimulate the sanguineous humor, whereas blue would soothe it and reduce blood flow."

Robert Hunt a scientist from the United Kingdom wrote "Researches on Light in its chemical relations" in 1844 the book described the influences of plant growth of selected applications of light.

American Civil War General Augustus Pleasonton

Augustus Pleasonton

Augustus James Pleasonton, often called A. J. Pleasonton , was a General during the American Civil War. He wrote the pseudo-scientific book The Influence Of The Blue Ray Of The Sunlight And Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky, which was published in 1876. His book is often attributed to being the birth...

 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

Blue

Blue is a colour, the perception of which is evoked by light having a spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 440–490 nm. It is considered one of the additive primary colours. On the HSV Colour Wheel, the complement of blue is yellow; that is, a colour corresponding to an equal...

 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 books about chromotherapy. Dr. S. Pancoast wrote "Blue and Red Light; or, Light and Its Rays as Medicine" in 1877 and Edwin Dwight Babbitt wrote "The Principles of Light and Color" in 1878.

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 stated 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 wrote 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, healers claimed colored glass filters could treat many diseases including constipation

Constipation

Constipation refers to bowel movements that are infrequent or hard to pass. Constipation is a common cause of painful defecation...

 and meningitis

Meningitis

Meningitis is inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, known collectively as the meninges. The inflammation may be caused by infection with viruses, bacteria, or other microorganisms, and less commonly by certain drugs...

. Photobiology

Photobiology

Photobiology is the scientific study of the interactions of light and living organisms. The field includes the study of photosynthesis, photomorphogenesis, visual processing, circadian rhythms, bioluminescence, and ultraviolet radiation effects...

, 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

Mysticism

Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...

 and to strip it of its associations with symbolism and magic.

Light therapy

Light therapy

Light therapy or phototherapy consists of exposure to daylight or to specific wavelengths of light using lasers, light-emitting diodes, fluorescent lamps, dichroic lamps or very bright, full-spectrum light, usually controlled with various devices...

 is a specific treatment approach using high intensity light to treat specific sleep, skin and mood disorders.

Meaning of colors

Ayurvedic medicine describes the body as having seven main chakra

Chakra

Chakra is a concept originating in Hindu texts, featured in tantric and yogic traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism. Its name derives from the Sanskrit word for "wheel" or "turning" .Chakra is a concept referring to wheel-like vortices...

s, which are spiritual centers located along the spine

Vertebral column

In human anatomy, the vertebral column is a column usually consisting of 24 articulating vertebrae, and 9 fused vertebrae in the sacrum and the coccyx. It is situated in the dorsal aspect of the torso, separated by intervertebral discs...

 that are associated with a color, function and organ or bodily system. According to this explanation, these colors can become imbalanced and result in physical diseases but these imbalances can be corrected through using the appropriate color as a treatment. The purported colors and their associations are described as:

Color	Chakra	Chakra location	Alleged function	Associated system
Red	First	Base of the spine Vertebral column In human anatomy, the vertebral column is a column usually consisting of 24 articulating vertebrae, and 9 fused vertebrae in the sacrum and the coccyx. It is situated in the dorsal aspect of the torso, separated by intervertebral discs...	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 Heart The heart is a myogenic muscular organ found in all animals with a circulatory system , that is responsible for pumping blood throughout the blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions...	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

Pseudoscience

Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status...

 by its critics, who state that the falsifiability

Falsifiability

Falsifiability or refutability of an assertion, hypothesis or theory is the logical possibility that it can be contradicted by an observation or the outcome of a physical experiment...

 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

Selection bias

Selection bias is a statistical bias in which there is an error in choosing the individuals or groups to take part in a scientific study. It is sometimes referred to as the selection effect. The term "selection bias" most often refers to the distortion of a statistical analysis, resulting from the...

 in statistics of success for the treatment. It has also been suggested that the placebo effect

Placebo effect

Placebo effect may refer to:* Placebo effect, the tendency of any medication or treatment, even an inert or ineffective one, to exhibit results simply because the recipient believes that it will work...

may be a key factor in the healing of some patients, which could be tested for by a chromotherapy control group.