Mind/Body: Which comes first

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Sometimes it's important to determine which comes first in an individual:

The feelings of depression and/or anger or the fatigue and assorted physical

symptoms. While it's true the psychological can impact on the physical,

it's also equally true that the physical can impact on the psychological.

Sometimes the key to successful treatment will lie in determining which is

happening first.

 

For example, an individual reports that s/he only feels depressed, down,

irritable, or angry if s/he overdoes physically and becomes tired and worn

out. When this person gets enough rest, the emotional symptoms disappear

(as well as many of the physical symptoms and the fatigue). This points

very strongly to a physical problem causing the psychological problems. No

amount of therapy and no amount of antidepressants are going to help very

much because the prime cause is overdoing physically coupled with certain

Deficiencies.

 

One of the possible scenarios for the clinical picture of a person only

feeling depressed and/or angry when s/he overdoes physically and is worn out

is the combination of Liver Invading Spleen and Spleen Qi Deficiency. While

it's true that the Liver can invade the Spleen because the Liver is in

Excess, it's also true that the Liver can invade the Spleen because the

Spleen is weak.

 

Both the Liver problems and the Spleen Deficiency problems are going to have

to be treated at the same time, but a little extra attention is going to

need to be paid to the Spleen problems in order to resolve this situation.

This includes the person not overdoing in order to give the Spleen a chance

to strengthen from the rest, herbs and/or acupuncture. This also includes

addressing the Liver problems at the same time because the Liver Invading

the Spleen isn't helping the Spleen Qi Deficiency problem or the weak

Spleen.

 

Kidney Deficiency problems can also be involved in a scenario like this.

 

Sometimes therapy will need to be the primary approach backed up with herbs

and/or acupuncture to treat the physical component and make it easier for

the person to deal with the psychological issues. One of the possible

causes for this sceanario is the individual is not being true to

him/herself. A classic example is a person who is at heart an artist but

for some reason is not expressing the artistic talent. Being excessive

passive also can trigger this scenario as well as failures to respond to

conscience. For example, an individual knows that certain acts performed by

others are wrong and refuses to voice objections or refuses to do what s/he

is capable of in order to remedy the situation. In these cases a very

severe depression can result if the person habitually ignores conscience.

 

Adopting bitterness as a way of life also can result in depression. Feeling

sorry for oneself is NOT bitterness. Sometimes feeling sorry for oneself is

a realistic response, and the person reverts to the usual good mood once

s/he has a good cry or works out some frustrations in vigorous physical

activity.

 

When a person has adopted bitterness as a way of life, the person takes

pride not in solving problems but in suffering and enduring. Such a person

sees the suffering as making him/her special and better than others. It

also gives the person excuses for never trying and isolates the person

emotionally from others.

 

In these scenarios, sleep and rest are not going to help the emotional

problems. In fact, excessive sleep and inactivity can make the depression

worse.

 

Sometimes it doesn't matter which came first, the emotional component or the

physical component. TCM recognizes that once an Organ is in imbalance from

whatever cause (emotional, viral, bacterial, toxin, trauma, etc.) the person

is going to be predisposed to certain emotions. These are snowballing

situations. Like a ball of snow rolling down a hill and getting bigger and

bigger as it picks up more snow, the physical feeds the emotional and the

emotional feeds the physical. The emphasis is on whatever it takes to

restore balance to the particular Organ and stop the snowballing.

 

Victoria

 

 

 

 

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