Yes, that's what she said when I went for my social enterprise-booked appointment with a colour therapist (or not, as she seemed to say - presumably to come across more amenably). A colour therapist who was dressed completely in black.
So what is colour therapy and why am I doing it?
CT proper is pseudoscience. It's a 'complementary therapy' (which means it isn't therapy) based on the existence of Chakras, the ancient Indian metaphysical system of bodily energy points. Each has its own colour and so the purpose of CT is to balance and align them. Only problem is that there's no evidence Chakras exist. It's a lovely worldview, but I see nothing that makes it real. Sorry. I can't afford to invest in fictional ideas.
CT as advocated by a colourless, if friendly (and she was, don't misunderstand me), not-a-therapist therapist involves the notion that we respond to colours in the way people respond to horoscopes. They make us feel good (which in reality is a rather prosaic truth), and, like horoscopes, they associate with a range of personality traits: creative, spiritual, assertive, etc. All the usual tropes. Supposedly.
I'm just not sure what I'm meant to do with that; we all know horoscopes are essentially meaningless precisely because they are statements constructed to appeal to anyone. We've all seen the experiments and tricks done (by the likes of Derren Brown) where the same horoscope is read to a person from each of the different signs, with each person claiming that was a unique fit relating to their experience. I think these are called Barnum statements, after PT Barnum the circus guy.
It's harmless enough, and, like so many beliefs, it contains a kernel of truth. We like colours and respond to them in different ways. But whether that can determine personality traits? In reality people are complex with ever shifting characteristics that derive from circumstance and environment, all of which shift. The archetypal phrases associated with colours and horoscopes are what we'd like to think we are; they are aspirations. Some of them are true, but they belie the act we change. Today I might not be assertive, tomorrow...?
So I'm presented with a pile of photos; each a picture of a scene in nature: a forest, the sea, the sunrise, some flowers, etc. I'm told to pick my favourites. These then represent colours I somehow in some way identify with. But the problem is that I'm not just responding to the colours, but the image as well. For example, I pick a striking image of a purple violet sunset over the sea. Had that been a purple violet piece of dog turd it would have been a different story. No one would pick that!
Next I'm invited to sift through a series of cards, each naming a colour and listing it's associated personality traits/characteristics. It's like being asked to pick a horoscope - I'm a creative person (or so I'd like to think, which, as I say, is the point I think) so that means I'm...purple? What does that mean? This is the question I didn't ask because I knew no answer would be forthcoming. Am I to surround myself with purple? If I buy lots of Prince albums will that make me more creative? I don't get it. Purple is a nice enough colour, I guess. I mean it's existence doesn't offend me, but I wouldn't want to live in a sea of it. Unlike Prince.
All of this exists within a certain context: this 'intervention' was recommended to me by the social enterprise, funded by the lottery, that are meant to be helping me. I only agreed to this because I feel obliged to. When you are offered next to nothing you have to realise that when you refuse something, no matter how rubbish it might be, you are seen to be refusing 100% of what they have to offer. Consequently you are subsequently accused of not engaging with the service. This is lazy. If all they can offer is colour therapy then perhaps they need to consider what they can offer, but anything for a quiet life I guess.
Colour therapy of course doesn't begin to address the deep seated social reasons why people struggle. Look at the society we live in, look at the structures that exist over which we have no control, yet they in return exert unjustified ocntrol over our lives. Look at how we depend on them for food, clothing, shelter, and all that good stuff. Look at the demands placed upon us by an economic system that is increasingly running on empty - falling wages, increasing workloads, longer hours.
Is it any wonder people are stressing to the point of pills and suicide? Half of all ESA claimantrs have attempted suicide. A situation completely unnatural that should not exist, but it does. Yet it is within this context that colour therapy is offered to me. Now, perhaps they recognise that it isn't meant to be a great panacea and merely 'something to think about', as the colourless therapist said to me. Ok, that's fair enough, but it's still not really any kind of help is it? Who doesn't find some colours more pleasant than others; who doesn't enjoy a still life or a natural vista?
What I resent is being placed into a situation where I feel obligated to accept help even when I know it won't. That isn't fair, that's how the Jobcentre operates - only there it's calcified into the cruelty of sanctions. Here it becomes a more spectral phenomena: am I letting my advisor down? Is she genuinely trying to help? I have to wonder - and that wasn't helped by the fact she didn't bother to tell me that the 'wellbeing' course they were setting up started without telling me...
So she had told me about this right from the off. I said this was something I'd be interested in doing (info pending) while she said, several times, that they were still getting it organised while waiting to get someone in to run it. Next thing I know I'm talking with that someone only to find that course had been running for almost 3/4 it's duration and that I was too late. Moreover, yesterday, the colourless therapist (she looked like she was going to a bloody funeral!), mentioned that next week the people from that course, along with the staff of this social enterprise (some of them at least) would be meeting for an Xmas get together. Ok, she did invite me (unlike my advisor who so far hasn't mentioned any such thing at all, despite knowing I suffer from social isolation). What a kick in the teeth: I'm not told about the wellbeing group and then find they are all having a Christmas get together! Not sure I want to attend as I won't know any of them, they, having already met and worked together, will know each other. I won't.
That well being 'course' starts again next month. The Colourless Therapist showed me the curriculum and, dismally, it's more of the same mundane self help nonsense. I shouldn't say that, if it helps people then fair play, but again - context! The sessions are weekly for an hour and a half and feature such topics as "what makes me happy". Maybe I'm just a massive curmudgeon, but I just don't see how this can help except on the tiniest level. I said I'm interested and I'll probably give it a go because there's no alternative, but it's the low level simplistic approach that bothers me. What makes me happy? Moaning on the internet apparently. Ok, so we focus on these things (perhaps not that)
and then what? How will that address the fundamental concerns that are being ignored by the Tories as they rip society in half? Purple rain, purple rain.
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