Blog
Mind and Body Cannot Be Separated and Can Be Effectively Integrated and Treated With Chinese Medicine
- October 13, 2022
- Posted by: Dr. Martha Lucas
- Category: Blog

Dr. Lucas would love to have a discussion about treating emotions using Chinese medicine. It’s not a question of being able to do psychoanalysis or talk therapy with a patient because most Chinese medicine (CM) practitioners are not trained in any real capacity to do so. But, an important connection can help us see how CM practitioners can successfully treat emotional conditions. Studies in neurobiology demonstrate that emotion is not limited to some specifically designed circuits of the brain that were once thought to be the “center” of emotion. Emotions are nonconscious mental processes and are a fundamental part of the information processing and energy flow that are central features of the organization of the self. Emotion is an essential way that the brain integrates and organizes itself and, in turn, the rest of the body. As such, emotions are important for us to consider in clinical practice.
Emotion changes physiology, physiology changes physical structure. The Masters taught that emotions caused physical disease.
In CM, we can see how emotion fulfills the function of integration and self organization. From our perspective, mind and body cannot be separated. Psychoneuroimmunology is a fascinating field about the effects of emotions on our physical systems. I believe that observing emotional states in pulse diagnosis and checking their influence on disease processes is of central importance for giving effective treatment. The fact is that in pulse diagnosis we can distinguish emotion from function and from physical structure. We can see the brain and distinguish a problem in it separately from an organ problem. Everything can’t just be reduced to spleen vacuity.
This information is available to all practitioners in the pulses … just underutilized.
Check out 10 Minutes of TCM Training – this episode is about Acupuncture Pharmacopoeia.
+++++ The latest course addition to our site: the online on demand course How to use the Luo Points to treat Emotions. Dr. Lucas tells the meaning of each Luo Point with regard to emotions so you can effectively help your patients move through emotional distress. ++++
We hope you have a great day and hit Reply if you have any questions!