Abstract
After more than one hundred years of contact with the West and importation of Western medicine into China, traditional Chinese health beliefs and practices continue to exert important effects on the symptom manifestations and health-related behaviors of Chinese patients (Kleinman et al. 1975, 1978; Topley 1976; Chan and Chang 1976). This is particularly true when the problems they experience are psychiatric or psychosocial in nature (Kleinman 1979). In this paper, I will review some key traditional Chinese health concepts, especially as they relate to mental illness, and discuss their implications for contemporary psychiatric practice among Chinese populations.
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Notes
Chinese medicine did not differentiate psychological from physiological function. In this paper, “human” or “human being” is often used to denote this holistic notion of the total existence of a person as an integrated biopsychosocial system. However, in several places, this usage seemed awkward, and I have employed the term “body,” albeit reluctantly. The reader should be cautioned that this term does not refer purely to anatomical part or physiological function.
The term “functional” is used because in Chinese medicine these “organs” are not thought of in a strictly anatomical sense. Instead, they are meant to be interpreted as individual anatomico-physiological-psychological systems that constitute the total human being. For the sake of simplicity, the significance of these “organs” in Chinese medicine is not discussed in detail. Interested readers should refer to Porkert (1974) or the standard Chinese medicine texts.
From: Chang, C. P.: Ching-Yue chueng-shuh (Ching-Yue’s Collected Work) (In Chinese).
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Lin, KM. (1981). Traditional Chinese Medical Beliefs and Their Relevance for Mental Illness and Psychiatry. In: Kleinman, A., Lin, TY. (eds) Normal and Abnormal Behavior in Chinese Culture. Culture, Illness, and Healing, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-4986-2_6
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