Study On The Theory Of Five Emotions In The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic

The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic is a great achievement collecting all the medical thoughts from Spring and Autumn and Warring Stage Period to pre-Qin Period.The thought in the book was influenced greatly by Confucianism and Taoism.Therefore,it contains abundant psychological thoughts.Besides,it was the first book which put forward the theory of five emotions as the earliest psychology in ancient China.There is great significance for the study of modern psychology.Psychological factors,also called internal injuries caused by seven emotions,are the important pathogenic factors in the theory of traditional Chinese medicine(TCM).Therefore,the study on the theory of five emotions is important for both TCM clinical research and the modern psychological study.The author described the five emotion theory in the perspective of psychological thoughts in The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic combining the spiritual connotation of Confucianism and Taoism.The author firstly explained the basic concept of five emotions,namely joy,anger,sorrow,fear and worry.It is believed in The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic that the five emotions in a normal condition can benefit both physical and psychological health and therefore they play an important role in health preserving and nature cultivating.However,the abnormal condition of five emotions can lead to diseases.The author discussed the abnormal condition from two respects of excessive and insufficient.The excessive five emotions are mainly rage,great joy,great worry,great sorrow and great fear while the insufficient are anger,hate,complaint,annoy and vexation.The detailed classification in the theory of five emotions was the first which was made according to the theory of five elements.As to the pathogenesis,there is the thought of Diseases are all result from qi disorder in The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic.It is believed that the occurrence of diseases is mostly result from abnormal change of qi caused by different pathogenic factors.Disturbance of qi activity in the body can affect the mind and therefore lead to the abnormal five emotions.The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic is the first book which put forward diseases caused by both physical and psychological disorder.There are many methods to treat diseases caused by abnormal five emotions in The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic.The general requirement is to harmonize five emotions.The author summarized some psychological therapies according to the book,namely emotional restrictive therapy,therapy of submitting to the will,therapy of attention distracting,therapy of enlightening and therapy of calming the mind,etc.Besides,according to the clinical and teaching experience,Professor Xu Zhenguo combined the modern psychology and the psychological thoughts in The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic and put forward a theory of new psychology.It included a whole set of therapeutic regimen on the psychosomatic diseases caused by the disorder of five emotions.There are five steps of purging,heat-clearing,regulating,nourishing and supplementing in the therapeutic regimen,which enriches the theory of five emotions and creates new thoughts for the psychosomatic medicine.It pushed the theory of five emotions into a new stage.