Herbal pills – english blog

Chinese medicine does not separate mind and body. Instead, the psyche and soma interact with each other. Psychological and emotional experiences can affect the body and vice versa. In this sense, spirit is linked both to the health of the body and to the health of the mind. Similarly, aspects of human experience, such as anger, that are considered psychological in a Western biomedical frame of reference are linked in Chinese medicine to specific organs. Anger is related to the liver, obsessive thought to the spleen, and joy to the heart.
No specific constellations of “psychotropic” herbs or medicinal agents are prescribed routinely for specific mental conditions. In addition, given the cultural predisposition to somatization, it may be unclear, in some instances, whether a mental disorder is being treated at all. In Chinese medicine, clinical presentations that are associated with neurosis (shen jing guan neng zhong) include a wide range of complaints that have distinct physical effects (see box 1).
Even the term “depression” has a somatic linkage. Depression is understood as a disruption of normal emotional activity,3 related to the stagnation of qi (vital substance substance) caused by “affect damage” (the ability of emotional excesses to damage the internal organs). In Chinese medicine, depression requires differential diagnosis and appropriate treatment. Patterns associated with stagnation of liver qi, heat related to the insufficiency of yin, stomach heat, and the insufficiency of heart and spleen blood may all be variously implicated.