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How This Book Came About

As authors, we both have over 20 years of experience as practitioners of Chinese medicine. Chinese medicine teaches that healthy emotions are a natural part of living but also that certain types of emotion can cause disease. It also states that some emotions are symptoms of an illness.

We have found that Chinese medicine frequently helps people with emotional problems — even when the emotional issues are not the presenting complaint. Often a change results from treating the Organ associated with the person’s underlying constitutional type. As the person’s energy becomes stronger this in turn gives her or him a better emotional balance. This is an advantageous spiral — the more healthy we are, the easier it is to have ‘normal’ emotions which in turn helps us to be healthy.

Of course, the opposite also happens. The less healthy we are, the harder it is to balance our emotions which, in turn, can make us less well. This is a negative and downward spiral as opposed to a beneficial and upward one. For example, one patient said it was clear that the more stressed she was and the angrier she got, the worse her irritable bowel syndrome became. Of course, the cause and effect went both ways — the worse her irritable bowel syndrome, the more stressed, depressed and angry she became. When she came for treatment, she had rectal bleeding and was already on cortico-steroid drugs. The doctor said the next step would be surgery and the removal of some of her colon.

Fortunately for this woman, Chinese medicine treatments cleared her problems. She also felt more balanced emotionally. Having had Chinese medicine treatment she found that she was able effortlessly to deal with previously difficult situations. This is an example of the positive effect Chinese medicine often has on the emotions.

With other cases, we have found that treatment has helped patients to feel better in many ways but they then get stuck in recurring negative mental or emotional states. These can neutralize the previous positive effects of the treatment. If this is the case, we have found that it is helpful, as well as using Chinese medicine, to work with exercises appropriate to the person’s type. A change of beliefs, values, attitudes and mental habits can release us from these recurring negative states and thus create better health. So when, as practitioners, we wanted to say ‘Stop worrying and your energy will be more balanced’, we found there are ways to put such a recommendation into practice.

This book is not just for you to read. You will also need to engage with it. After reading it, please ponder and make some guesses as to your constitutional type. Then, you can embark on the set of exercises for your type. These exercises are not onerous or difficult and many are easy. For other exercises you may need to use your mind in new ways which may seem different or even awkward at first.

By reading about the different types and working through the relevant exercises we hope you will gain some useful insights into your internal world and thus create change in your life. Please note, however, that this book is not aimed at replacing treatment by a qualified practitioner of Chinese medicine or a trained therapist or counsellor — in fact we hope that by reading it you will feel like exploring Chinese medicine, or therapies such as NLP.

If you use these exercises, please do so with commitment, and do them gradually and repetitively. Results accumulate. We believe that you will definitely find the exercises much easier than simply stopping whatever emotions are helping to make you less well. We wish you the best of luck and would be happy to hear from you via our publisher.

Chapter 1

THE FIVE ELEMENTS, CONSTITUTIONAL TYPES AND THE EMOTIONS

A long-term study at York University¹ has confirmed what many of us already intuitively know — that our negative emotions can cause disease. Psychologists tracked the progress of thousands of young students over a thirteen-year period.

At the beginning of the study, each student was monitored over the course of two terms. Tests gauged their personality, how they coped with stress and how healthy they were.

From the study the researchers found that emotions had an important effect on whether we get ill. The students who were emotionally balanced were less likely to become ill. On the other hand, the ones who:

dwelt on the past

were unable to take in support from others

got irritable from working too hard

found it difficult to express their feelings, or

were unable to remain cool in difficult situations

were more likely to become ill.

The illnesses varied from headaches to heart troubles, but it was found that the people who were most often in these negative states were likely to have more serious illnesses. The researchers noted something that Chinese medicine has known for over two thousand years. This is, that negative emotions place us under a kind of permanent stress which causes us to become unhealthy.

In this book we will be discussing this obvious truth, that repetitive negative emotional states cause us to become ill and conversely, that regular, positive and balanced emotions can help to keep us well.²

This chapter will introduce us to the Chinese view of health, disease and our emotions. It will also explain how these relate to Chinese Five Element theory and the Five Element types. This chapter will also give us a thorough background to all aspects of the Five Element types. This includes a brief history, their relationship to our Organs, how our constitutional type originates and an overview of the positive and negative capacities of the types. We will also look in greater depth at how we become ill and how we are affected by our emotions. Before we go any further, however, let’s look at how the Chinese view disease.

CHINESE MEDICINE AND DISEASE

Chinese medicine teaches that there are three main areas which cause disease. These are called External, Internal and Miscellaneous causes.³ The External causes relate to how the climate can make us ill. The Miscellaneous ones are mostly to do with how our lifestyle can affect us. It is the Internal ones, however, which we are dealing with in this book. This is because they are concerned with our emotions.

The Internal causes of disease were first noted in Chinese texts over two thousand years ago. They are clearly an even more important cause of disease in today’s society than they were at that time.

You may be wondering what the emotions have got to do with the Five Elements and the Five Element ‘types’.

THE FIVE ELEMENT ‘TYPES’

The five main constitutional types are based around what is known as the theory of the Five Elements. Along with Yin and Yang, which are the two prime forces of the universe, Five Element theory underpins the whole of Chinese medicine.

Each of these Five Elements is associated with two main organs. We will discuss these organs and Elements in greater depth in this chapter and the later ones. All of us are born with one Element which is constitutionally slightly more imbalanced than the others.⁴ This imbalance causes us to have repetitive negative states or difficulties expressing certain emotions.

If we have an imbalance in the Element known as ‘Wood’, for example, this is connected with the Liver and Gall Bladder organs. The associated emotions have to do with anger and assertion. An imbalance on the other hand in the Lungs and the ‘Metal Element’ will tend us more towards emotions connected with grief and loss.

By knowing and understanding our constitutional imbalance or ‘type’ we can know where our main emotional imbalance lies. This is important because it enables us to specify the key areas where greater awareness and work on ourselves will pay the greatest dividends. If, for example, the inability to grieve is a key factor, then ‘working on our anger’ is not as useful as responding to our diminished capacity for grief. After all, much of the anger may be coming from the inability to experience or express our grief.

In order to understand these types better we’ll now find out more about the Five Elements.

WHAT ARE THE FIVE ELEMENTS?

As we said earlier, the Five Elements along with Yin and Yang are an important underlying structure of Chinese medicine. Five Element theory says that the energy of the world can be divided into five movements or processes which are sometimes also called phases or Elements. We will use the term ‘Element’ as it is the one most commonly used.

The Elements are: Fire, Earth, Metal, Water and Wood. They are the energetic substances or processes out of which the world is made. Each Element is defined as having a set of associations. For example, some of the associations are a Yin and a Yang Organ, a colour, a sound in the voice, a season, a taste, an odour, a direction and a climate. Through these associations arises a Five Element language to describe the world.

The Elements connect to each other via two cycles illustrated by the arrows. The cycles emphasize how aware the Chinese are of the interconnectedness of the Organs. Below is a diagram of the Five Elements and their generating and controlling cycles. Figure 1 shows the main associations of each Element.

Figure 1: THE FIVE ELEMENTS AND THEIR ASSOCIATIONS

HOW DO THE FIVE ELEMENT ASSOCIATIONS CONNECT?

Any situation in the world will always contain all of the Elements, but one will be dominant. As an example we’ll assume it’s a summer’s day. The sun is bright and the temperature is scorching. People are gathered together and talking a lot, bright colours such as red appear in abundance and laughter resounds.

We would say from the description above, that of all the Elements, Fire is in the ascendant. Why? Because summer, heat, speech, laughter and the colour red are all associations of Fire. So is the heart. And so is the emotion joy.

The Five Element theory is a way of connecting many aspects of the world. We can use these to determine which Element is to the fore in a situation and which Elements are in the background.

HOW DID THE CHINESE USE THE FIVE ELEMENT THEORY?

The theory of the Five Elements was originated by a Chinese philosopher, Tsou Yen, a few hundred years before the birth of Christ. Tsou Yen is thought to be the founder of Chinese scientific thought. In his first writings, he described the movement from one Element to another. This was especially with regard to the change in power from one dynastic ruler to another. His political advice and insights became highly sought after. He was consulted by the various powerful lords, emperors and feudal rulers at a time when China was a group of warring states.

Over time, however, the Five Element theory was used in agriculture, war-making, and many other practical arts as well as political organization and medicine. Some of the uses may seem rather unusual to us today, but for the Chinese they were always practical and useful in everyday life.⁵

In medicine, the Five Elements were used in a similar manner to the Yin-Yang theory. This was to determine the underlying causes of acute and chronic illnesses. We believe, however, that one of the Five Elements’ most successful uses lies in determining the patient’s deepest Elemental imbalance or ‘constitutional type’. This helps us to deal with chronic illness.

The way we, the authors, have been taught to determine constitutional type involves careful observation of the person’s emotional state and an understanding of the emotion associated with each Element. Hence the connection in this book between the Element types and the emotions. So where did this system of finding an underlying imbalance originate?

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE FIVE ELEMENT TYPES

Five Element types were first mentioned in an ancient Chinese book called The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine.6 People have changed since that time and the different types have been described in various ways throughout Chinese history.⁷ Five Element types have also been described in other oriental countries such as Japan and Korea.⁸

The types which we describe in this book were taught to us by an acupuncture teacher called JR Worsley over twenty years ago.⁹

FINDING OUR FIVE ELEMENT TYPE

There are different ways of establishing which of the Elements is the one which is primarily imbalanced. The system we use, and describe in this book, starts with the notion of one Element being the weak link in the chain of the Five Elements. Because all of the Elements are linked, the Element which was originally imbalanced will affect all of the others. It will, however, also create certain recognizable characteristics in a person. These are described in the individual chapters on each type.

FINDING THE UNDERLYING CAUSE

Chinese medicine is an energetic medicine which means, among other things, that rather than just examining a person’s body, we look for the underlying or energetic cause of a patient’s problem.

We usually think that our everyday life is made up of a multitude of things, including events, thoughts, objects and people. On the other hand we can simplify a day’s events by considering our basic needs and asking ourselves if they were satisfied. We can forget all the details of what happened today and say, ‘Was today a good day?’ This is another way of saying ‘What’s underneath all my concerns? What’s important?’

The Chinese frequently look ‘underneath it all’ and ask what is happening to a person on a deeper level. For example, in Chinese medicine it is typical not only to address a patient’s symptoms, but also to look for the energetic cause which underlies the symptoms. This is often referred to as the deeper cause.

Chinese medicine teaches that our ‘Qi’ (pronounced ‘chee’) underlies all of our functioning. It is the force which warms, moves, transforms and protects everything in our bodies and minds. The Five Elements describe five important phases or variations in this underlying Qi.

THE ORGANS AND THE FIVE ELEMENTS

We mentioned earlier that each of the Five Elements has two Organs associated with it (apart from the Fire Element which has four). We’ll now take a deeper look at them. One of the Organs is a ‘Yin’ Organ and the other is a ‘Yang’ Organ and they are ‘paired’ together.

The quality of Yang is more active and external than Yin which is more still and internal. Consequently the Yin Organs lie deeper inside the body and are concerned more with storing or retaining. The Yang Organs have more to do with transformation, movement and elimination. Below is a list of the Yin and Yang Organs associated with each Element.

Element	Yin Organ	Yang Organ
Wood	Liver	Gall Bladder
Fire	Heart	Small Intestine
	Pericardium	Triple Burner
Earth	Spleen	Stomach
Metal	Lungs	Large Intestine
Water	Kidney	Bladder

We often refer to these Organs as an ‘Organ system’. By this we mean the Yin and Yang Organ as well as a number of other functions connected with each Organ. Because we are talking about the Chinese rather than the Western understanding of an Organ, which is similar but also very different in emphasis, we will also capitalize the name of an Organ or Organ system when we are referring to the Chinese understanding. These are discussed in greater detail in the individual chapters on each type.

HOW DID OUR ELEMENTAL IMBALANCE ORIGINATE?

It is believed that the Organs of one of the Elements is slightly imbalanced from the time we are born. We therefore call it our constitutional imbalance or type. The Organ system affects the healthy functioning of both our bodies and our minds. Where the Organs are constitutionally weaker, this will have an important effect on our personality as well as our physical health. A child born with weak Lungs will have a different life from one born with strong Lungs but weak Kidneys.

Because in this book, we are giving the greatest emphasis to the effect of the constitutional weakness on the ‘emotions’, it is important to say how the word ‘emotions’ is being used. We are using the word in its widest sense. It is more the predisposition to feel a certain way and take up certain attitudes to the world around us. We will talk more about what an emotion is in a few moments.

OUR ELEMENTAL IMBALANCE AND OUR EMOTIONS IN OUR EARLY LIFE

We have now described how one of our Organ systems is weaker from birth. The weakest one will create a tendency towards a different set of emotions experienced early in life. If it is the Heart, for instance, then the emotions we experience will be around joy and sadness. The Organs and the emotions associated with each Element are:

Element	Emotion
Fire	Joy/Sadness
Earth	Sympathy/Worry
Metal	Grief/Loss
Water	Fear
Wood	Anger

These different emotional imbalances lead to the development of different personalities, built around our different values and expectations of the world. We can put this into a diagram:

THE ORGANS AND THE EMOTIONS

Saying that an Organ system is ‘connected to’ or ‘makes an emotion possible’ may sound odd. It is not a belief we have in the West. In the West, for example, the lungs are not thought to connect with our emotions. The Five Element associations, however, say that the Lungs and grief are connected. Well-balanced Lungs can lead to the healthy expression of grief.

From our clinical experience we have seen that patients with weak Lungs often have difficulty with the expression of healthy and normal grief. When a patient’s Lungs are strengthened by treatment or exercises, their ability ‘to experience grief’ improves. The effect of the Lungs on the expression of grief is particularly important when the weakness of the Organ is constitutional. Hence the significance of the types.

What we mean exactly by ‘grief and the ability ‘to experience grief’ will be clearer in the chapter on the Metal type. For the moment, the notion of an emotion overlaps with many other parts of our personality. In the chapters on each Element we describe how at the core of a person there are five key ‘major concerns’. Although all of us have a wide range of other motivating factors in our lives, we all have some which are more important than others.

Why is this so important? It is important because it specifies which are our core weaknesses, our core strengths and, most definitely, our core sensitivities. Knowing these suggests the most fruitful place to work on ourselves.