Possible mental illness problems

Comment by Chad J. Dupuis, L.Ac.

There are far more patterns than just phlegm/heat that will lead to psychological issues. If you look over our acupuncture for anxiety protocols page as well as our acupuncture for depression protocols page you will get more ideas.

Generally, yes, you help resolve phlegm by purging/draining it. But, you have to be careful that there are not underlying deficiencies as you will then make the situation worse. Additionally, you can have layered cases of dampness and yin deficiency, for example, which make using warming/drying approaches more problematic. Basically you have to have a very firm understanding of tcm diagnostic theory and the exact path through which your patient arrived at their current situation to be able to treat properly.

If you look through some of the “functional groupings” of the herbal formulas you get an idea of some of the actions. Pertinent to “phlegm” the subcategories on the treat phlegm functional grouping page will highlight some approaches within that diagnosis.

Comment by Archived User

I certainly understand the possibilities of various complicated patterns. Dampness to I guess means “dampening” of a signal sometimes. How exactly do you find out about all these different possible scenarios? Does it just take time? I know myself diet and feeding organs is the basis of things. That’s my job. If you don’t do that TCM/acupuncture will probably not hold up. I guess something can move from the channels through wei chi to the zhangfu. And the other way around.