More about Psychology and Chinese medicine

[Guest guest]

I think this group's discussion of psychiatry has gotten into social

and religious implications and off the mark a little bit of what it

is we actually do in clinic. It's not a question of being able to do

psychoanalysis or talk therapy on a patient because TCM practitioners

are not trained in any real capacity to do so. But you are

overlooking an important connection between Western medicine and

Chinese medicine that would easily solve this controversy. We know

from recent studies in neurobiology that emotion is not limited to

some specifically designed circuts of the brain that were once

thought to be the " center " of emotion. Emotions are nonconscious

mental processes, and are a fundamental part of the information

processing and energy flow that are central features of the

organization of the Self. Emotion is an essential way that the brain

integrates and organizes itself and, in turn, the rest of the body.

As such, emotions are improtant for us to consider in clinical

practice. Emotions change physiology; physiology changes physical

structure.

 

For that very point we have 5-Elements in the Chinese medical model.

We can see how emotion fulfills that function of integrating and

selforganizing in 5-Elements. From the perspective of 5-Elements,

mind and body cannot be separated. Unfortunately, when I teach pulse

diagnosis, I haven't yet had a student ask " how do we see the brain

and distinguish a problem in it separately from an organ problem "

(for example, a tumor in the brain from a tumor in the breast

tissue). These and many other problems can't all be just reduced to

spleen vacuity. The answer is that when we divide the pulse into

different levels following the Nan Jing, we can distinguish emotion

from function and from physical structure. Observing emotional

states in pulse diagnosis and checking their influence on disease

processes is of central importance. Emotional states are often

underlieing many disorders in Western culture.

Psychoneuroimmunology is a fascinating field, and should be

accessible to those who understand 5-Elements.

 

We do this type of analysis in the Dong Han pulse diagnosis system,

and I believe it is also done in Leon Hammer's system as well. My

point is not that this information is inaccessible to all but a few

who have studied these two systems, but that this type of

perspective is available from Chinese models that are already

familiar to you but underutilized. For example, the study of

emotions discussed in Larre and Rochat's book, Seven Emotions (Monkey

Press), and in Western medical literature as well, fit in the 5-

Element model. Unfortunately, they are poorly described and not

clearly appreciated in the TCM model (here I'm using the national

board's standard as a common definition of TCM).

 

I look forward to the Blue Poppy book on psychiatry because the

inclusion of Dr. Lake's own clinical use of Chinese medicine will be

truly groundbreaking. For far too long, studies derived from Chinese

case histories have always been held suspect in America. Simply

copying that information into English would just be more of the same.

The case history reports of the successful use of Chinese herbal

formulas by a Western MD in psychiatric practice will go further than

anything else to validate Chinese medicinals and lend credibility to

the Chinese system of medicine.

 

Jim Ramholz