A practitioner who works according to TCM uses the following four methods to make a diagnosis:
- Questioning
- Listening and smelling
- Inspection (Looking at)
- Palpation (palpation
The symptoms that the practitioner recognizes occur in a very specific combination that is not random, they are called the symptom pattern. Since, according to Traditional Chinese Medicine, these symptoms are due to an imbalance, they are also called disharmony patterns. Each symptom pattern has a Chinese name, which at the same time gives information about the symptoms and also about the treatment. For example, if the diagnosis is “Stomach-Heat”, the corresponding treatment is “Cooling the Stomach”. It is treated with the antagonistic, i.e. opposite principle, in order to create a balance and restore the equilibrium. Guiding criteria of diagnostics are:
- Yin – Yang
- Inside – Outside
- Heat – cold
- Deficiency / emptiness – excess / fullness
For clarification, an exampleA sunburn is an external abundance-heat disease. From this, the therapy can be derived immediately – the fullness must be reduced and the heat cooled.
Yin and Yang
Yin and Yang symbolize that everything in life has two sides, which are nevertheless inseparable.Yin stands for:
- The female principle
- Moon
- Unconscious
- Earth
- Darkness
- Cold
- Silence
- The receiving
Yang stands for:
- The male principle
- Sun
- Conscious
- Sky
- Light
- Heat
- Movement
- The giving
Yang in Chinese stands for the sunny side of a mountain, Yin stands for the other, the shady side of the mountain. If the person is healthy, Yin and Yang are in a fluid balance. If this balance gets off track and one of the forces gains the upper hand, illnesses are the result. Typical yin disorders include low blood pressure (hypotension) and fatigue. If Yang gains the upper hand, this leads, for example, to increased blood pressure (hypertension, irritability and inflammatory reactions of the body. The back and the outer sides of the arms and legs belong to the Yang, the front of the body and the inner sides of the arms and legs are assigned to the Yin. This seems paradoxical at first, since we assume that we mostly face the sun. The explanation is simple: a field worker has sun shining on him from behind, and his front side faces away from the sun as he works.
Inside – Li – and outside – Biao
The criteria “inside” and “outside” give information about how far a disease has already penetrated into the depth. A disease that only affects the surface is called a superficial syndrome. If the disease-causing influences have already penetrated the inside of the body, this is called the internal syndrome.
Cold – Han – and heat – Re
Diseases cause imbalances in the body. There may be an excess of heat or there may be an excess of cold. A cold syndrome is the result of harmful, externally invaded cold, or else the result of a qi – or yang – weakness. Heat syndrome occurs as a result of excessive external heat, or else due to a weakness of the humors or yin.
Emptiness – Xu – and fullness – Shi
The words emptiness and fullness refer on the one hand to energy, and on the other hand also to the substance of the body. In emptiness syndrome, a deficiency of qi, yin or yang may be the cause. Emptiness syndromes can be both congenital and acquired. Emptiness syndrome often occurs in chronic conditions. In fullness syndrome, some substances are present in excessive amounts, such as yin, yang, qi, cold, or dampness. Fullness syndrome often occurs in conjunction with acute illnesses.
Pulse and tongue diagnosis
Other important and informative methods of Chinese diagnosis are pulse diagnosis and tongue diagnosis, which are presented in a separate chapter.
Benefits
Chinese diagnostics sees the body as a whole. It is the basic prerequisite for the application of traditional Chinese therapeutic methods. Over thousands of years, the Chinese have learned to understand and decode the signals of the body, so they can tell what is wrong with you based on appearance, pulse or touch.At the same time, the diagnosis provides information about the therapy, since treatment is carried out according to the antagonistic Chinese principle.
