The mistake of judging a book by its cover

So I was sorting through the books I'd got out of the library and deciding which ones to return when I came across this book which I had got out on the first day of the masters and which I had overlooked because of the out of date looking cover and not very useful blurb on the back. However, after spending a few days reading it I've found it extremely useful and have realised that it has exactly the kind of information I was looking for!


Among the things I discovered from this book are:


-Tremor, torticollis and sometimes Parkinsonism “can at times be diminished in severity if the individuals are protected against red or yellow, if they wear, or instance, spectacles with green lenses.” (Kurt Goldstein) 


-Red encourages extroverted activity - centrifugal, blue encourages introverted -centripetal. (as shown in an interesting experiment by Felis Deutsch and Friedrich Ellinger (experiment by H Ehrenwald)  where subjects stood with arms stretched out in front of them and different coloured lights were shone on one side of them. Arms moved slightly towards red light and away from blue (even with eyes closed)

Robert Gerard: colour experiment using red and blue light (and white as a control) blood pressure – red = increase, blue = decrease. Respiration – increase in red, decreased in blue. Eye blinks – increased in red, decreased in blue. Cortical activity – all increased it but red kept it increased for the longest.

-Suggested uses in treatment:

Blue: anxiety, insomnia, hypertension, torticollis, tremors, pain relief (mental effect rather than an actual pain killer),

Red: fatigue, certain types of depression, lack of libido.

Although of course this will only be part of the treatment - no one's saying that you can cure someone by shining a blue light in their face!

-The view that colours are childish may come from our development as children. As infants we react to colour on this basic and emotional level, but as we grow older we develop intellect and so become more interested in the form of objects and their purpose. However most of us still retain this basic attraction to colour and it is this feeling that people are somehow ashamed of as it takes us back to childish emotions. However it is not something to be ashamed of, colour effects us all.

Generally people who are most interested in their surroundings (or extroverted) will be most attracted to colours, whereas those who are more interested in internal or mental workings (or introverted) are generally less interested in colour.

-Faber Birren “...emotionally responsive persons will react freely to color; inhibited mortals may be shocked or embarrassed by it; restricted and detached types may be unaffected.”

 

-Faber Birren “Manic-depressives in particular will be pleased by color and will react with considerable (and agreeable) excitement to it... Schizophrenic types are inclined to reject color, to look upon it as something which may prove 'catastrophic' and break into their inner world.”

 

-Faber Birren “In small children, a pacific environment and pacific attitude may serve only to increase tension and prod irritability. Here bright color may relieve nervousness by creating an outward stimulus to balance an inner and wholly natural fervor. Conversely, in melancholy humans an attempt to 'cheer up' a mood of dejection (through color or anything else) may serve merely to aggravate the misery and drive it even deeper.”

So I definitely have my work cut out for me... It's all so subjective and also there is the problem (outlined in the last bullet point) that effects can be opposite to what is intended. Also the contradiction between people's cultural or personal view of colours and the effect that it actually has on them (for example a patient might request to be surrounded by yellow because they associate it with positivity, but it may in fact have the opposite effect on them)

Its all very complicated....