comment about astrology by a practicing psychotherapist friend

Astrology is at best a pseudoscience with little or no empirical evidence to support its claims. However, people are entitled to their beliefs, and if some people find that believing in the powers of planetary alignment or whatever gives them symptomatic relief, then that's just fine by me. I feel the same way about homeopathy, witchcraft, religion, magic, alchemy etc etc. - their placebo effect can be powerful, but to claim that deep-rooted psychological or physical problems can be cured by them is disingenuous at best and potentially dangerous. Counselling doesn't claim to have all the answers, but aims to help individuals to use their own resources to end potentially destructive patterns of behaviour within a safe therapeutic alliance. The relationship between the therapist and client is probably the most powerful element of the process, and the debate still rages on whether or not counselling/psychotherapy is an art or a science. However, where trained practitioners work within a code of ethics laid down by a professional body, (and I wouldn't recommend seeing any practitioner who doesn't) scientific claims must be backed up by scientific evidence. This doesn't seem to be the case for astrology, which seems to call itself a science but then exempts itself from validation criteria generally accepted by the rest of the scientific community.

astrology- the most beautiful psychological analysis tool

The big question that i hear from most of my intellectual friends is:

is astrology a true science?

or is it a crookedly made pseudo science to exploit people?

the general answer i give is:

i know atleast 100 well educated people who were on the verge of suicide, and it is astrology which played a major role in giving them hope and thus averting the last resort.

these people were well educated, sensible people who lost all their hope because of some serious issues which cropped up in their lives, which they couldn't solve by their own/their first circle's logic.

now, how did i give them hope?

i am not a miracle worker or a saint to be able to change their attitude so quickly.

i just used the laws of this science to gain their confidence, by correctly assessing a few aspects of their lives.

then they start to believe, for we are looking desperately for hope.

for something/anything to hang on to.

do you think, i can cheat these educated people by their horoscope assessment and gain their confidence?

astrology can be surely used for personality assessment and strengthening, if not for any other purpose. say, much better than any Jungian or Freudean methods.

its one of the most beautiful tools available for mankind to help oneself to evolve better.

now, you want to call it pseudo?!