Newport Beach Therapist Sues Self-Help Guru Chopra

A former Newport Beach psychotherapist has filed a $100-million lawsuit against Deepak Chopra, alleging that the noted author and self-help guru plagiarized her copyrighted manuscript in his best-selling book, “Seven Spiritual Laws of Success.”

“It was devastating,” Rose Parvin, 48, said Thursday. “When I saw his book, I literally threw up from feeling devastated.”

Chopra could not be reached for comment on the lawsuit, filed this week in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. In a letter to Parvin’s attorney, however, a lawyer representing Chopra denied infringing on her copyright.

“You continue to make sweeping claims of gross misconduct, but continue to fail to provide even the smallest bit of evidence to support these claims,” the letter from attorney David A. Weinfeld stated.

Parvin said she sent galleys of her original manuscript, titled “Pattern Change Programming, Creating Your Own Destiny,” to Chopra for review in 1994.

An 800-page manuscript that she had copyrighted and later self-published, the book was based on an original philosophy, she said, and “new psychology” that she had developed over 15 years. While she had never met Chopra and was not familiar with his work, Parvin said, she hoped that he might mention her work in print.

Despite two letters, the psychotherapist said, she never heard from the noted author.

As a result of the plagiarism, Parvin said, she lost credibility among her fellow therapists, who thought that she had copied Chopra’s work. Eventually, she said, she lost her practice as a licensed marriage and family therapist and had to close a therapy center she ran in Newport Beach.