Chinese doctors have eight standard treatment strategies to ward off or fight disease. First, we may induce sweating to helpdissipate a problem. Second, we may induce vomiting to help remove a difficulty. Third, we may give a purgative or laxative for the same purpose. Fourth, we can harmonize otherwise antagonistic functions. Fifth, we may gradually warm up a patient or, sixth, refresh or cool the patient off. Seventh, we may bolster the patient's energy with tonic medicines. Obversely, eighth, we may diffuse or discharge an excessive energy buildup.

In Chinese medicine we use some highly conventional concepts as a form of shorthand when diagnosing ailments. These are widely misunderstod in the West. Our yin/yang concept has broad applicability, but we do not follow it slavishly or simplistically. We do not resort to such drastic oversimplifications as calling any and all of about forty-seven different infectious diseases "the common cold."

Chinese medical practitioners talk about the five elements of wood, fire, earth, metl and water as a shorthand way of discussing typical syndromes. Again the is nothing simplistic about this approach. We avoid applying these notational conventions too literally. They are ways to conceptualize and discuss typical ailments based upon bodily imbalances, nothing more. We focus especially on functional organ systems such as those of the heart, spleen, lungs, kidneys and liver.

For example, the liver system falls under the category of wood, and its often associated emotion is anger. Of all the human emotions, we single out joy, fear, sadness, compulsive thinking and anger as especially likely to affect health negatively. Anger makes the energy move outward and upward, but suppressed anger, which we could also call frustration, blocks the subtle energy system and causes stagnation. The liver function is the most susceptive to this stagnation, which can in turn lead to anger, irritability, and dystonia. Stagnation of the vital life force, or qi gives rise to stagnation of blood by producing a contraction (narrowing) of the blood vessels. Sufficient stagnation of blood will always produce muscular spasms. The Chinese doctor conceptualizes your ailment in terms of the balance of the five elements, the balance of blood and qi, yin and yang. The details become intricate and specific to the person being diagnosed.