The new thoughts of disease causes and cure of Chinese medicine psychology

Wang Zhongping

Abstract:
The psychology of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) inherits the understanding to the psychological phenomenon of ancient China philosophy. It is a subject to study the laws of the occurrence and development of the psychological phenomenon and the function and laws of the psychological factor in the human body disease processes by utilizing the basic theory and the practice of TCM.
Through an experience in deep sorrow in disease process 20 years ago, I was pulled back from the death line by adjusting psychology, I had cognizance of the decisive function of the psychology to the body. From this time on I studied diligently the rules of the relations among human's psychology, physiology and pathology, made every effort to discover one kind of new thought of diagnosis and treatment in the existing theories of TCM.
I think that all the changes of human's physiology and pathology cannot leave the psychology, and the disease that does not have the psychological meaning and response does not exist. The human body is similar to a big chemical plant, while the psychology is similar to the adjustment password of the chemical plant. If you have any type of psychology, the chemical synthesis will carry on according to your psychological orientation in human body. For about 20 years I have studied how to break down these passwords, namely studied the theory and the application method what psychology leads to the disease, how to reconsider the disease can be cured. Through the inheritance and excavating to the internal cause and diagnosis and treatment theories of TCM, the reference to the modern psychology, the modern medicine, the mind and body theory and so on, I discovered the change rules among the human's psychology, physiology and pathology. By using the dialectical thought of philosophy, changing ideas, adjusting mood and psychology and achieving the peaceful psychology, the disease can be reversed and cured and the body and mind health can be obtained. From this I summarized five basic theories of the relation between psychology and body:
1. Psychological fluctuation has the directing effect on the flow of the human body’s qi and blood.
2. Psychological fluctuation can produce the directional physiological and pathological effects to internal qi and blood.
3. The changes of qi and blood derived from psychological fluctuation have a retaining nature to human body.
4. Psychological changes can make the benign or malign transition to the diseases.
5. By applying a peaceful state of emotions and dialectical natural attitude and adjusting the past and present unpeaceful state of mind, the psychological causes of diseases can be dispelled and the diseases can be alleviated or cured.

The relation between human's psychology and disease is very important. The bad psychology has the destructive effect to the mind and body health. This view is widely accepted by everybody. What kind of feeling can be caused by one kind of bad psychology? What part of human body can be affected by this psychology? What kind of destruction can be created? The theories of “seven sentiments” and “nine qi” of Huang Di Nei Jing have summarized these questions resumptively. On this basis, I took the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) as the theory foundation, took the Chinese and the West medicine and the psychology as the medical foundation, took the dialectical materialism philosophy as the thought foundation, and studied how to cure disease by adjusting psychology. Through more than 20 years practice, I summarized the corresponding relation between psychology and body and five basic theories how to cure disease by adjusting psychology:
1. Psychological fluctuation has the directing effect on the flow of the human body’s qi and blood.
The theories of “seven sentiments” and “nine qi” of Huang Di Nei Jing said “anger hurts liver”, “anger leads qi to the upside” and so on. This manifests the directing and orienting effects of the psychology on the human body’s qi and blood.
Su Wen – Yin Yang Ying Xiang Da Lun said: “anger hurts liver”, “happiness hurts heart”, “sadness hurts lung”, “fear hurts kidney”, “fright hurts gallbladder”. The different sentiment has the different influence to different internal organs, but by no means absolutely so, because the human body is an organic whole. Moreover liver, heart, spleen, lung, kidney that the TCM said are not only independent dissected internal organs itself, but also are an overall functional system.
Secondly, seven sentiments can not only hurt the internal organs directly, but also can affect the change of qi, thus the normal circulations of qi and blood are destructed. Su Wen – Ju Tong Lun said: “The feeling of anger leads qi to the upside. The feeling of happiness leads qi to a delay. The feeling of sadness leads qi to the disappearance. The feeling of fears leads qi to the underside. The feeling of cold leads qi to the inside. The feeling of heat leads qi to the outside. The feeling of startle leads qi to confusion. And the feeling of thought leads qi to a congelation.” Obviously, the mood change can cause the disorder of qi, TCM said: qi and blood are the basic materials of human body’s vital activity, and the changes of qi may affect the normal circulations of qi and blood and bring bad effects to the health. The conditions maintaining the normal circulations of qi and blood correlate to human's mood closely. Therefore, the psychology has the extremely vital role to the human body health.
We take the common phenomenon of “shy blushes” as the example. Its reason is the shy mood leads qi and blood to the face directly and makes the face blood vessels full. Some people propose that shy blushes are caused by the anxiousness makes the palpitation to speed up and the blood stream to accelerate when you are shy. But when you have a scare, the speed of palpitation is quicker than that when you are shy. While at this time the face bleaches and does not change red. The reason for this is that the feeling of fears leads qi to the underside and can seriously cause the phenomenon of the incontinence of urine. This is the response of “fear hurts kidney” and “fear leads qi to the underside”. Needs to explain the shyness may cause the human to blush, but all the blushes are not caused by shyness. The influence of psychology on other diseases also is so.
2. Psychological fluctuation can produce the directional physiological and pathological effects to internal qi and blood.
The unpeaceful moods have the directing, orienting and qualitative effects on the human body’s qi and blood. These effects may respond in the two aspects, physiology and pathology. The effects may be psychology produces the effects to the body’s feelings or psychology produces the effects to the internal material.
In human's body, the different psychological functions cause the corresponding physiology or pathological change. The seven sentiments and nine qi theories of TCM generally described this question. Actually all the extreme moods in people heart and all the illogical viewpoints can bring the varying degree of injuries to body and the injuries defers to the strict principles and the corresponding rules. The more the unpeaceful psychologies are and the heavier the degree is, the more and heavier the diseases are. In the research process of the corresponding rules of psychology and disease, we carry on the psycho-analysis to the people who have the same disease. We discover the unpeaceful psychologies that they have and their characteristics and the serious degree of their characteristics. We concentrate the investigation results of many people together and find the common psychology rules of these results. Then, we use these rules to other people who have the same symptom and observe the effects after the mood adjustment. This helps search the corresponding psychological rules and confirms the accurate degree of psychological rules. In fact the influence of the psychology to the body is one kind of objective existence that is objective and is not yet cognized by us.
For example, when the human comes across sad or the excited matter, usually he can not help flow off the tears. This is because the sad or excited moods transform qi and blood into the tears, but do not transform qi and blood into the urine or other body fluid. This is the example that psychological fluctuation can produce the directional physiological effects. Simultaneously psychological fluctuation can produce the directional pathological effects. If a person often feels heavy about his responsibility and burden, and often has the moods such as urgency, angry, hate and fear, his/her shoulders may present uncomfortable symptoms such as pain. According to the directional laws, the unpeaceful psychology that arises from responsibility and burden will directionally influence shoulders, while the feeling induced by the moods such as urgency, angry, hate and fear is the pain in shoulders. In other words, our different diseases are caused by the different psychological fluctuation. If you are the human who likes stickling and not conceding, your cervical vertebra possibly has the question. If you request to yourself and other people very strictly and always think yourself correctly, you possibly suffer from gallstone. If you always want to work as the good person and are willing to pay for this, and when these pay has not obtained the repayment, your psychology is not peaceful, you are possibly a diabetic. Until now, I have studied and summarized the psychological corresponding rules of 400 kinds of diseases including internal medicine, chirurgery, gynecology and pediatrics.
3. The changes of qi and blood derived from psychological fluctuation have a retaining nature to human body.
During the forming of disease, the changes of qi and blood derived from psychological fluctuation have a retaining nature to human body.
Usually people believe that seven sentiments are the human innermost reflection to the objective things. In normal condition, so long as the psychology does not change excessively, extremely or suddenly, it cannot cause the human pathogenesis. By contraries, our body has the very strong compensation, any cause of disease has the influence to the human, and until all the influences must arrive certain degree and surpass the physiological adaptation scope of the human body, they can cause the human to fall in ill. The influence of psychology to human body is similar. All unpeaceful psychologies can cause the human to be taken bad. After these unpeaceful psychologies come into being, they do not cause the human to be taken bad immediately. The unpeaceful psychologies are not dispelled and retained in the human body. Each kind of unpeaceful psychology accumulates over a long period of time in the human body and change the normal flow of qi and blood constantly. Finally the unpeaceful psychologies cause the qualitative change and cause the human to be taken bad under the corresponding cause. The other pathogenesis factors we usually said are the evocating spots of the qualitative change.
4. Psychological changes can make the benign or malign transition to the diseases.
The psychological change may cause the bodily change, at the same time the bodily change may cause new psychological change. Along with the different psychological changes after the human get sick, the disease also changes correspondingly. This kind of change is not restricted in the change of the serious degree of the sole disease. The psychological change can bring the changes of the diseases of the different part, the different feeling and the different characteristic. How does the psychology make the disease change? This is connected with the primary psychology and the secondary psychology and the relation between the two psychologies that a person treats the disease.
The primary psychology is the primitive psychology which causes the disease. If the primary psychology is eliminated, the disease becomes not serious, even is self-recovery. We take periarthritis in shoulder as the example. About fifty years old people often suffer from periarthritis in shoulder. Therefore the disease is also called “fifty shoulders”. Because about fifty years old people are the community with the heaviest burden and responsibility in the work and life, they have both parents and children and most of them have their work. Therefore they are often unable to withstand the burden. The unpeaceful psychology that arises from responsibility and burden will directionally influence shoulders, so they often suffer from periarthritis in shoulder. Along with the time passage, the children started the work, the old person had passed away one after another, the psychological pressure related to burden and responsibility is reduced and the influence to the human body is reduced. So periarthritis in shoulder can be alleviated. If primary psychology does not change, the disease can not be cured. Because the cause of disease is not eliminated, the disease can not be alleviated and even becomes serious. But many psychologies are not easy to change, so the corresponding diseases are not easy to be cured and become the lifelong diseases people often say. For example, a very important psychological rule on diabetes is you always want to work as the good person and are willing to pay for this. But this kind of psychology is not easy to transform and this aggravates the treatment difficulty of the disease.
The secondary psychology is the unpeaceful psychology that can make the transition to the diseases. It directly affects the transition to the diseases. Firstly, if the primary psychology is consistent with the secondary psychology, the original disease aggravates. This is obvious, because the same cause of disease is aggravating, the corresponding disease will also aggravate inevitably. Secondly, if the primary psychology and the secondary psychology are different, here also have two kinds of possibilities. If the primary psychology is opposite to the secondary psychology, the disease may be alleviated, because the pathogenesis factor is reduced. Another kind of possibility is new diseases are taken. From this, we can explain the psychological origins of many diseases such as the complications, the transfer of cancer. For example, according to the corresponding psychological rules to the diseases, the liver diseases are related to the psychology such as hopeless stupid, grievance, injustice, regret; pulmonary diseases are related to the psychology that a person worries about the future; gastric diseases are related to the psychology that a person does not accept or hold anything. Because of excessive hopeless stupid and grievance, a person may suffer from liver cancer. After he is taken bad, the most people will appear the psychologies that they worry about the future and do not accept the reality. The two psychologies are the causes of pulmonary diseases and gastric diseases. When these psychologies are serious to a certain degree, they can cause the lung cancer and the stomach cancer and this is the transfer of cancer in the course of liver cancer.
5. By applying a peaceful state of emotions and dialectical natural attitude and adjusting the past and present unpeaceful state of mind, the psychological causes of diseases can be dispelled and the diseases can be alleviated or cured.
This theory is the key and the inheritance and development of TCM. It tells us how to cure diseases by the heart. But the psychological therapy I say is different from the five elements therapy of TCM. The psychological therapy is to find the psychological rules of pathogenesis through diseases and go to initiative reconsidering. We transform the prevenient competed psychology into peaceful psychology and change the extreme viewpoint into the dialectical viewpoint. The reconsidering process is the adjusting and curing process, the self-introspection process and the process eliminating the retained unpeaceful psychology. In the reconsidering process you may feel discomfort because of the retained unpeaceful psychology. You have to continue to think peacefully, do not worry and face disease peacefully. Thus you can achieve the goal to treatment diseases and build up the strong and healthy body.
Unpeaceful minds will result in diseases. However, this doesn’t deny there are other nosogenetic factors. Unpeaceful minds can directly affect the body and make people sick. Furthermore, they are also closely related to other nosogenetic factors. The usual nosogenetic factors (environmental factors and social factors) are exogenous, and unpeaceful minds are endogenous. The exogenous factors only affect people through the endogenous factors. For the body itself (heredity, age, and gender), the body is endogenous, and the unpeaceful minds are the inducement. The minds are the keys to determine if those nosogenetic factors can affect the body. The diseases are the interactional results of minds and other nosogenetic factors. That is why under the same circumstance some people got sick, but some people keep healthy. By adjusting or changing the past and current unpeaceful minds, it will kill the sources of diseases, cut the formation of illness, consequently alleviate or cure the diseases. The regular medication is still important. However, it will only remove the exogenous factors. If the endogenous factors are still there, people will get sick again under certain circumstance. All in all, the heart problem can be only cured by the heart. People can only get thoroughly health by removing the unpeaceful minds.
In the five basic theories, the first three are nosogenetic theory; the forth one is changing theory; the fifth one is therapeutic theory. In summary, what kind of unpeaceful psychology will cause what kind of disease. The nosogenetic minds will be removed through dialectical natural self-reflection, and consequently the diseases could be alleviated or cured. How does psychology affect body? A lot of theory and practical support have been discovered in the development of modern science’s system theory, information theory, and control theory. And this is the embodiment of traditional Chinese medicine in modern sciences.
All things are connected to each other in this universe. The things with closer connections will affect each other more. These mutual connections are systems. Different materials form different systems, and big systems contain small systems, big systems will restrict small systems. Human’s body is part of this material world, and a relatively independent system, which contains multiple small systems with different functions. The specific parts of human body have their own properties, and human body is special material controlled by spirits, minds, and brain thinking. These restriction connections are the corresponding relationships between psychology and body. They are running orderedly and systematically through the rules of categorization of a thing according to its image. And different psychological rules are connected to each other. Only by this way we can find out these rules and use these rules.
Information is the universal phenomena in human society and nature, is the embodiment of materials and their rules. There are two meaning of information: The narrow sense is the new information, new content; the broad sense is the connections, exchanges, and affections within or between the systems of nature, human society, and human body. Information is the important token of all materials and their changes in this world.
Modern scientists treat the universe as three components combining together as material, energy, and information, and also think they have relationships of inter-changing, nondivisional, and imperishable. Human body is also part of the universe, so it is also the combination of three components. The psychology is information, the rules between psychology and diseases are running through the form of information change. They are also the embodiment of the presence, changes, and mutants of human body’s material and energy. Unpeaceful minds are the information to control our body. People’s unpeaceful minds will immit microcosmic information into human body. They can conduct the energy’s directional conglomeration. This will lead to qi and blood’s abnormal flow or retain, and consequently make people sick. When we change the unpeaceful minds, we will change the information, as well as the corresponding material and energy. The cure process is the process to kill the past retaining information, restore the normal flow of qi and blood. Therefore, the process of psychology affecting body is the process of getting disease and killing disease, the process of information transfer and change. The adjusting psychology will affect body, and the mechanism is through the information transfer. Therefore we deduced the concepts of retaining, killing, and recalling information.
Retaining information is the psychological reasons for people to get sick. It is the unpeaful minds that lead to fluctuation of qi and blood. The adverse effects of retained information on human body may not operate immediately. They only operate when the amounts of these effects getting great. There is a process for the psychological changes to do something about material changes. This process is so called “future disease” in Chinese medicine or “latent period” in western medicine.
Recalling information means the retained information is out because of some specific reason (such time, place, person, thing, or stuff) and people get sick.
Killing information is the process to cure disease. It means under a peaceful psychological status the past nosogenesis logical thoughts and wrong orientation are inversed by dialectical natural self-reflection, consequently the diseases will be cured.
Retaining information is the process to form a disease; Recalling information is the process of disease emerging; Killing information is the process to cure disease. These three processes are the whole thing of getting and curing disease.
One thing to be clarified is that “retaining information” is different from “memorizing information”. Memory is the keeping information in brain. It includes retaining or non-retaining information. Retaining information is the psychological factors of getting sick, including memory or non-memory.
System and information are closely related. In ours psychology and body system, the process of understanding certain information is the process of deducing the linguistic information from directly or undirectly felt linguistic and imagic information. In another word, it includes grammar, language, and picture information based holographic concept, structural and functional analogues. The basis is the direct information transfer and communication process.
Control theory is to use the methods of math and physics to study the controlling process between systems from the perspective of information. Its basic property is to transfer, change, and process the information. It was found by modern medicine that the human body’s controlling system includes neural system, endocrine system, and main and collateral channels system. They function through interchanging information and feedback adjustment to receive, modulate, exchange, connect, and regulate the entire stimulus from inside and outside environment. The methods to use psychological adjustments to cure disease are to use psychology as special information to change the psychological status by ourselves, and change the affections by all kinds of information.
In the relationships of human body and psychology, system is the basis, information is the process, and control is the method. Through utilizing corresponding rules between psychology and body, we can use information to understand and control system, therefore to restore the health and strengthen the body. Ultimately, we will realize the harmony and unification of psychology and body systems.
Through the above discussion we know that cure of diseases can be realized through psychological adjustments. There is an old saying: Diseases are caused by the heart. Now we can say: Diseases are cured by the heart. This treatment is not simply just a cure. It is a method of control, adjust, and cure diseases. Besides body, life, all the physiological functions, people also have thinking, feeling, a wonderful spiritual world, and complicated psychological activities. Therefore, we cannot only use biomedical model to treat diseases. We need to apply the idea: monism of heart and body, and use the medical model of physiology-psychology-social to treat the patients by adjusting their psychology. Specifically speaking, under the directions of psychology doctor the patients will cure the diseases by themselves through self-reflection. It will be working not only on psychological diseases but also other ones. Ultimately, the body and the heart will gain health concomitantly.
We have realized that the diseases are related to those unpeaceful minds. If you get rid of the diseases you need to change the nosogenetic ideas and thoughts radically, jump out of your small circle, take an objective stance, re-understand yourself, adjust your psychology momentarily, and keep yourself in a status with peaceful minds. If you can understand others, understand society, untie those problems in you heart, then the qi and blood in your body will run normally, your diseases will be alleviated or cured, and eventually gain the full health both physically and psychologically.