Let’s first take a look at how Western medicine approaches and treats psychological disorders. In Western medicine, the brain controls the mind completely. Our emotions, thought and consciousness are from forty to fifty neurotransmitters that transmit signals from a neurone.
Core neurotransmitters are; dopamine, which makes the person feel good, norepinephrine which reacts to stress, and serotonin which controls dopamine and noradrenalin, all of which make the person feel comfortable. Psychological disorders mean those neurotransmitters are malfunctioning. Therefore, the goal of treatment is to regulate these neurotransmitters. It’s clear and simple.
However, the problem is that our brain is not simple. Modern science has not even come close to completely understanding the 100 billion neurones that are interconnected by 100 trillion synapses. Even though we do not fully understand it, we have been working with what we do know and have created medicine for psychological disorders. In some cases, the treatments work well but it also can lead to dangerous side effects.
Dependency is another problems. If essential substances are continuously provided from outside of human body, it thinks that no more production is needed. Keeping this in mind, we should not stop taking psychological all drugs at once. We need to gradually reduce the amount of drugs prescribed and give some time for the body to work by itself. Again, it is not as simple as it might sound. One click on the internet and we can find an overflow of people who suffer from the side effects of psychological drugs.
How has Eastern medicine been treating psychological disorders? For the last several centuries, people living in the East or West did not know about neurones or neurotransmitters either. I hope you do not think there were no treatments in the east. You can find many clinical cases in classic Eastern medicine texts and books.
Throughout the history of Eastern medicine there have been several approaches. I would like to start with my favourite method. Like Eastern philosophy, Eastern medicine is more focused on the whole issue not just part of it to understand the world.
To diagnosis depression in a patient with Eastern medicine, I consider not only his/her psychological status but also physical symptoms like, sensitivity to hot and cold, frequency of urination/bowel movement, digestion, and how often one sweats. There are always supplementary symptoms; especially individual physical symptoms that distinguish between specific psychological disorders.
For instance, there is a patient that suffers from depression and he/she easily feels cold. Treating symptom of feeling cold will result in relieving depression. Patients that suffer from anxiety usually complain about nausea at the same time. Interestingly, treating nausea can also diminish anxiety. Lots of patients with psychological disorders also complain about frequent urination. Treating frequent urination can also help in regulating the mind.
Instead of attempting to treat the brain itself directly, eastern medicine tries to regulate the whole body to change the brains function for treating each psychological problem. Different approaches to the human body show different ways of treatment. Ways that can be safer and nonaggressive. In addition, it’s not addictive.