[Above, Chuck Spezzano performing a "Deeksha Blessing" in 2007]
The Healing Metaphors A-Z by Chuck Spezzano and Janie (Patrick) Ticehurst is perhaps one of the more toxic creations to come out of Psychology of Vision, and that is saying quite a bit:
http://psychologyofvision.blogspot.com/2015/10/healing-metaphors-z.html
Another member of our critic consortium brought a short online article to my attention, What Not To Say When Someone Is Sick / Posted by Steven Novella on March 30, 2016. It can be found on the Science-Based Medicine website:
https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/what-not-to-say-when-someone-is-sick/#more-41393
Anyone familiar with Psychology of Vision will immediately recognize Spezzano/Ticehurst in this piece. I especially enjoyed this passage by Dr. Novella:
Remember this – you are not their doctor. You have no business giving them health advice. If they ignore you, you have only managed to make a sick or dying person feel worse. If they listen to you, then you now have responsibility for the outcome.
Sick people are emotionally vulnerable, that is why they are preyed upon by charlatans. Whatever their intentions, what actually happens is that the sick person and their family are simply victimized. They are given false hope, which is likely to be dashed, adding to their emotional burden.
I believe this also applies to mental and emotional health. It is important to remember Chuck Spezzano is not an academically or legally qualified professional psychologist and has never, so far as I can ascertain, contributed to peer-reviewed journals where his work can be examined and questioned. But as we all know, Psychology of Vision doesn't like being questioned.
