Shen Series - Course 3

To us westerners it looks as a reductive over-simplification that in Chinese medical tradition there are only 5 or 7 emotions and that they do not seem to consider all the other sentiments, as hate, envy, jealousy, attachment, aggressiveness, shame, fault, regret, avarice, etc. It is the result of recognizing the essential, of going to the root, to the core, into the heart of the primary emotions. Chinese Medicine sees emotions as physiological events, a response of our qi and shen to what comes from the outside world. But excessive emotions are harmful: “Desires without limits and worries without end consume jing, coagulate ying qi and expel wei qi; then the shen leaves and the disease is not curable” (Suwen, ch.14) and “When euphoria and anger are not regulated, they will injure the organs, when organs are injured, illness originates in the yin” (Lingshu, ch.66). Emotions, internal movements, affect qi. If qi does not move properly we can have qi stagnation, blood stasis, accumulation of dampness and phlegm, transformation into Fire and internal Wind, etc. Yin, blood, and jing are injured. Sadness consumes qi, euphoria scatters the shen, thought and worry knot the flow of qi, anger rises it up, fear does not contain it. How to recognize the single emotions in patients and in the therapeutic encounter. Detailed clinical examples help to recognize different patterns and how to use the “shen-axis” points combination.