Chromotherapy

Chromotherapy
Alternative medicine
Edwin Dwight Babbitt, an early proponent of Chromotherapy
ClaimsColored light can balance "energy" in a human body.
Year proposed1876
Original proponentsAugustus Pleasonton
Subsequent proponentsSeth Pancoast, Edwin Dwight Babbitt

Chromotherapy, sometimes called color therapy, colorology or cromatherapy, is a pseudoscientific form of alternative medicine which proposes certain diseases can be treated by exposure to certain colors. Its practice is considered to be quackery. Chromotherapists claim to be able to use light in the form of color to balance "energy" lacking from a person's body, whether it be on physical, emotional, spiritual, or mental levels. For example, they thought that shining a colored light on a person would cure constipation. Historically, chromotherapy has been associated with mysticism and occultism.

Color therapy is unrelated to photomedicine, such as phototherapy and blood irradiation therapy, which are scientifically accepted medical treatments for a number of conditions, as well as being unrelated to photobiology, which is the scientific study of the effects of light on living organisms.