TCM & pyschological problems

[Guest guest]

TCM has a far more sophisticated understanding of the body-emotions-mind-spirit

connection than Western medicine does.

 

In TCM it is recognized (like in Western medicine) that blocked, excessive,

powerful, and prolonged emotions can damage the body. TCM is more sophisticated

in that it has mapped out exactly which organs and meridians are most vulnerable

to specific emotions.

 

But TCM goes far beyond even this in that it recognizes that a damaged or

imbalanced organ will create the very emotion that it's most vulnerable to.

 

Review Dagmar's newsletters on the Liver and Gallbladder and anger and

frustration. The Liver and Gallbladder are most vulnerable to injury by anger.

But, once the Liver is damaged from whatever cause - be it emotional, viral or

bacterial infection, toxins, parasites, etc. - the person is going to be more

prone to feel anger. The damage to the Liver from whatever the original cause

will cause the person to feel more anger than s/he otherwise would. This extra

anger in turn futher damages the Liver, and this in turn leads to even more

anger and so on.

 

This is a snowballing situation.

 

No TCM healer would fob a patient off on a therapist without addressing the

physical problem. Yet, this is done routinely in the U.S. by allopathic doctors.

In TCM just taking care of the underlying physical problem often is enough to

stop the emotional problems. But in those cases where the person also requires

therapy, TCM healers recognize that the chances of the therapy being successful

are greatly increased if the physical imbalance is first addressed. Otherwise,

the physical imbalance is just going to keep creating the emotion even if the

original trigger for the emotion is addressed by counseling.

 

If Western doctors would quit rushing to prescribe psychoactive drugs or bundle

the patient off to a shrink at the slightest mention of emotions, they would

rediscover that emotions can be a very valuable aid to diagnosis. I say

rediscover because Western doctors and nurses used to be trained in paying

attention to emotional states as an aid to diagnosis. A very few still are.

 

I once knew an older nurse who worked in an allergy clinic. She told me that one

clue to a person having allergies or something else wrong with their lungs is

that the person will appear anxious. As desentialization to allergies is

accomplished, the person will lose the anxious expression. It should be a

no-brainer to modern Western doctors that when someone is having problems

breathing s/he is going to feel anxious and appear anxious. Yet, most Western

doctors will miss this important clue that the person may have allergies and/or

mild, undiagnosed asthma in their rush to prescribe psychoactive drugs or to fob

the patient off on a psychiatrist while still getting paid for making the

original (though incorrect) diagnosis. On the other hand, TCM recognizes that

the lungs are particularly vulnerable to damage by anxiety and that once the

lungs are damaged or in imbalance from whatever original cause, they will create

anxiety. TCM is very logical and practical.

 

Western doctors and nurses used to be trained to realize that if a patient

appeared angry, there was a good chance that the person had digestive system

problems (which the Liver and Gallbladder can certainly play major roles in)

and/or the person was in pain. They didn't understand exactly why this was in

the case of pain, but they recognized that a relationship existed. TCM

recognizes why. One effect of prolonged pain is that it can create Stagnation of

Qi and Blood Stasis problems. The Liver is particularly vulnerable to Stagnation

and Stasis problems.

 

The practical application of this is that whenever you're dealing with a patient

who has experienced chronic pain, suspect Stagnation and possibly Blood Stasis

problems somewhere in the body. Pain can create Stagnation, and Stagnation can

create pain. And suspect and rule out or rule in problems in the Liver meridian

and/or liver. Not all pain will come from Stagnation problems, but possible

Stagnation problems need to be considered. Check the color of the tongue. If

it's purple, you're dealing with Stagnation and possibly even Blood Stasis. If

the tongue is reddish purple, Heat is involved. If the tongue is bluish purple,

Cold is involved.

 

TCM is also more sophisticated than Western medicine when it comes to dealing

with severe mental illness. We're talking about conditions like Manic-Depression

(Bi-polar Disorder) and schizophrenia here. The psychoses. TCM sees psychoses as

originating in very severe physical imbalances. Severe psychological problems is

not the only manifestation of this severe physical imbalance. Think about this

for a moment. If you've ever been around SMIs (Severely Mentally Ill people),

one thing that strikes you immediately is that they have a lot of physical

health problems and are not in the best of health. In the West this is usually

attributed to their lacking the ability to take care of themselves like a normal

person does. But TCM recognizes that the same root cause that is causing the

severe mental illness also is causing the physical health problems. Address the

underlying root cause and both the psychological and the physical health

problems will start to disappear.

 

Unfortunately, some of these very severe roots can take a lot of treatment and a

long time to resolve (if they can be resolved). Some can be resolved relatively

quickly, but some of them cannot be. I don't want to go into detail about what

some of these conditions are at this time, but a lot of them involve imbalances

in the Heart. One of these involving the Heart is called Phlegm Obstructing the

Orifices of the Heart. Phlegm disorders can take a long time to resolve.

 

I want to call readers' attention to something in the history of the U.S. There

used to be a lot of people in mental institutions in the South who suffered from

delirium, dementia, dermatitis, and diarrhea. (The 4 D's as it was called.)

There was no hope for these people, and they continued to get worse and worse

until they died. After scientists started to discover the B vitamins, someone

eventually realized that what these people were suffering from was a vitamin

deficiency called pellagra. They needed the B vitamin niacin and protein. The

reason there was a disproportionate number of these patients in Southern mental

hospitals was the diet of Southerners, especially poorer Southerners. It was

mostly corn and corn products like hominy and grits. Corn lacks an essential

amino acid involved in making protein which beans supply. When the diets of

these mentally ill people were improved by adding beans at the same time the

corn was eaten (for protein) and greens and other foods were added to the diet

(for the niacin), these people started recovering. The diarrhea and the

dermatitis cleared up along with the dementia and delirium. Centuries before

doctors in the West began to recognize vitamin and mineral deficiency

disorders, it was already known in China that certain foods would treat

disorders with certain symptoms and that not eating enough of certain foods

(like unpolished rice) would cause certain problems.

 

A tendency to an excessive emotions and even severe psychological problems

always go hand in hand with physical health problems. They come from the same

root problem. Identify and correct the underlying imbalance, and both the

emotional and physical health problems start to clear up.

 

TCM healers treat the entire person and do not send a patient off for therapy

without also treating the physical imbalance.

 

Victoria

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

Victoria,

 

I've been preoccupied with " normal " life, but really appreciate the info

you're giving us here.

 

Unfortunately, I've seen first-hand that Western doctors

sometimes don't even practice Western medicine very

well. I know of one woman who was put on Prozac,

and other depression/anxiety meds. No one ever thought

it was significant to check that she had infrequent

periods...like once every four or five months. They

never checked her thyroid. And this is a woman whose

mother had died of ovarian cancer.

 

Nor did they think it significant enough to give

her a diet (she had gotten grossly overweight),

advise her to stop smoking or stop drinking diet

coke.

 

Cathy, Wise Weeds

http://www.freeyellow.com/members6/wiseweeds/

 

 

> " " <victoria_dragon

>

> TCM healers treat the entire person and do not send a patient

 

> off for therapy without also treating the physical imbalance.

[Guest guest]

>Unfortunately, I've seen first-hand that Western doctors

>sometimes don't even practice Western medicine very

>well.

 

I've seen this a lot too.

 

>I know of one woman who was put on Prozac,

>and other depression/anxiety meds. No one ever thought

>it was significant to check that she had infrequent

>periods...like once every four or five months. They

>never checked her thyroid. And this is a woman whose

>mother had died of ovarian cancer.

 

Things like this happen more often than people realize. I too have seen some

misdiagnoses that boggle the mind. Sometimes the problems are so obvious that

even a high school biology student can do a better job narrowing down where the

problem lies than the doctor has done. I remember an episode of Oprah Winfrey on

so-called hard to diagnose disorders. Some of them are, like MS. But the case of

hyperthyroidism really boggled my mind. Even after the woman's eyes started to

bulge, her doctors still didn't consider that her thyroid gland was way

overactive and continued to misdiagnose her as suffering from anxiety.

 

There's a very good book called Ill, Not Insane that goes into many physical

illnesses that have psychological components. I think it should be required

reading in medical school. Some states do have laws that you have to rule out

certain physical illnesses before you can commit a person. But these laws

frequently are ignored. It's so much easier and more lucrative just to

misdiagnose something as psychological and either prescribe psychoactive drugs

or bundle the person off to a shrink.

 

BTW, there's even a term for when a busy doctor wants to lighten his case load

and does so by referring the patient to a psychiatrist. It's called " tracking " .

 

I forget the name of the two women who wrote Ill, Not Insane.

 

Victoria

 

 

 

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