Traditional Chinese Medicine's Perspective On Emotions

Specific purpose: To inform my audience about Traditional Chinese Medicine’s perspective on Emotions and how it can help overcome emotional problems.

Central Idea: Traditional Chinese Medicine derived its concept of dualism from Taoist philosophy, which strongly emphasizes on the balance of two forces (Yin and Yang) for human organs to function effectively, so as to prevent emotional problems from arising due to such imbalances. Different emotions can also affect or counter one another.

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Introduction

I. Good morning everyone. When you hear of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), what comes into your mind? For me, acupuncture, suction cups, herbal tea and massage struck me.

But after developing an interest in TCM, I discovered it is much more than these. The main concept of TCM is derived from Taoist philosophy known as dualism or simply “Yin and Yang” (Jin-Ling Tang, 2008). They represent opposing forces of the universe. Similar to Taoists, TCM practitioners believe that a balance between these two in the human body is the path to good health and longevity. (Novella, 2012)

Connective: As much as maintaining physical health, one’s emotional health being is viewed with great importance in TCM. Firstly, I’ll be sharing about the concept of organs in TCM. Next, I will attempt to draw a relationship between organs to emotions. Finally, I will provide insights on the how different emotions can affect each other as stated in TCM. [Internal

They are Anger, Joy, Worry, Pensiveness, Grief, Fear and Shock (Schoenbart & Shefi, Traditional Chinese Medicine Causes of Illness, 2007). These seven emotions are connected to the organs closely. Anger is connected to Liver, Joy to heart, Worry and pensiveness to the spleen, Grief to the lungs, and both Fear and Shock to the kidneys (Traister, 2011). As such, I would like to highlight a two way relationship between an organ and its related emotion. For instance, when a TCM practitioner is treating a patient with an anger management problem, he or she may point out that the source of such excessive anger might have originated from an imbalanced liver.(Cathy Wong,