TCM Basics 101: Root for illnesses: 7 Internal Factors
Copying from my previous posts, the causes of illnesses can be grouped mainly into 4 categories:
- six exogenous (external) pathogenic factors
- seven endogenous (internal) emotional factors
- imbalance between rest and work
And let’s go into the seven endogenous (internal) emotional factors this time.
Now in TCM, we give a lot of attention and weightage to emotions as the factors for illnesses to form, even pain conditions! This is something very different from Western medicine which mostly stays within the physical realm of things.
Emotions are energy in motion.
In TCM, apart from the normal flesh and bones, energy is what we actually deal with, be it with needles or herbs. In simple terms, authentic TCM doctors who know their stuffs work to balance the energy in a person, that is the basic job scope of TCM doctors.
It is normal to have emotions, that is part of being human. Problem arises when the emotions become extreme and especially over an extended amount of time. Read about Why Emotional Release is Important here.
A person can be having the best food and ingredients in their diet, the most comfortable living environment but with the fact that he/she is emotionally unwell, the negative or extreme feelings can manifest into illnesses in the physical form over a prolonged period of time. Because emotions are energy, and when one kind of energy keeps permeating within the person’s body and mind, it will result in functional imbalances to the body systems. And when these functional imbalances are not addressed, physical imbalances will develop from there because things (can be blood, qi, hormones, lymph, enzymes etc) are not flowing the way it should be, or just stuck.
So today I’ll just introduce the seven endogenous (internal) emotional factors briefly and we will deep dive into each of them in my future posts, because I find it interesting as well to share from my clinical experiences.
The seven endogenous emotional factors are:
喜Joy，怒Anger，忧Worry， 思Thought，悲Grief， 恐Fear，惊Fright
Read about Anger, Joy, Worry, Grief, Fear in Traditional Chinese Medicine here.
Now usually in our diagnosis, we will lump Worry and Thought as one, and Fear and Fright as one so that only five kinds of emotions are present to tally with the five organs and elements which then helps us in our diagnosis and treatment.
These seven emotions come from the phrase “七情六欲”, which means seven emotions and six desires coming from classics of Tao, Buddhism, Confucianism. This depicts the mental makeup of human from a spiritual energetic point of view.
So because I am sharing as a TCM doctor now, I will group them as five factors and deep dive into them slowly later on. So watch out for my future sharings soon. =)