The influence of the Seven Affects (anger, joy, worry, sorrow, thought, fear, and fright) on mental and emotional health is a key aspect of East Asian medicine. When discussing the concept of “long disease,” the majority of the focus tends to be directed toward externally contracted causes of disease such as environmental influences, the Six Excesses (wind, cold, summer-heat, dampness, dryness, heat / fire), and epidemic qi / epidemic disease.
While these concepts are vitally important in crafting unique and nuanced treatment strategies, I often feel the potential for the Seven Affects to act as instigators of chronic disease is frequently overlooked. More often than not, discussions on the Seven Affects focuses on mental and emotional health exclusively, and ignores how emotional states of abnormal intensity and duration can cause internal damage contributing to a lingering state of dis-ease or “long disease.”
In 30-plus years of clinical practice, I have seen and treated all facets of what is now being discussed as “long disease.” This is most often due to suppression of symptoms and poor treatment protocols; but is also due to the significant underlying issues of yin deficiency and blood stasis, which are often overlooked or missed in clinical evaluations.
Connecting the Dots
The Seven Affects – and how these imbalanced emotional states can directly damage organs and the flow of qi – are consistently overlooked and downplayed. Here’s the most basic overview of the Seven Affects and how these emotional states can directly damage internal organs:
- Anger damages the liver
- Joy damages the heart
- Sorrow / grief damages the lungs
- Thought / pensiveness damages the spleen
- Worry damages the lungs
- Fear damages the kidneys
- Fright damages the heart and kidneys
The connection between emotional states and organ damage brings us to a more nuanced exploration of how the generic concept of stress or allostatic load can be a direct stimulus to both acute and chronic disease; and that emotional states of abnormal intensity and duration can strongly contribute to lingering disease states / poor disease recovery. When emotional states continue unabated for extended time periods, the result can be a significant impact on the state of qi, blood, yin, and yang; as well as direct damage to the respective organs.
Therefore, when treating conditions linked to “long disease,” it is critically important to keep the Seven Affects in mind when contemplating treatment protocols; as well as educate patients on how emotional states can impact important mechanisms of both health and disease.
“Emotional Atmosphere”
I find it extremely helpful to use the concept of “atmospheres” when educating patients on how emotional states can impact not just mental health, but also physical health; as well as the ability for the body to recover from seemingly unrelated health challenges.
For example, if during a viral infection, the patient is constantly experiencing states of fear and worry, this can have a direct impact on how effective both acupuncture and herbal medicine will be. If a patient is chronically sad or chronically frightened, regardless of what acupuncture / herbal prescription is administered, results will often be temporary and result in “long disease.” If the emotional state of the patient is not taken into account, subpar results will often be interpreted as the “wrong diagnosis” by both the patient and the practitioner.
All of the above is why it is critical to consider the “emotional atmosphere” of the patient and inquire closely about how the patient is experiencing both disease and their respective life.
One of the most frequent issues I see clinically when considering the Seven Affects and long disease is in situations in which significant life events are occurring, such as a disease state manifesting in proximity to a family death or loss of a job. For example, we tend to think of the prevention of a cold or a flu virus to be an issue of hygiene or nutritional states from an allopathic perspective, or a wei qi deficiency from a Chinese medicine perspective. In the majority of cases, it is not such a simple answer.
I often share these words from Rudolf Steiner with my patients during the cold and flu season:
“Germs flourish most intensively when we take nothing but materialistic thoughts into sleep with us. There is no better way to encourage them to flourish than to enter sleep with only materialistic ideas.
The only other method that is just as good is to live in the center of an epidemic or endemic illness and to think of nothing but the sickness all around, filled with only fear of getting sick. That would be equally effective. If fear of the illness is the only thing created in such a place and one goes to sleep at night with that thought, it produces afterimages, imaginations impregnated with fear. This is a good method of cultivating and nurturing germs.”
Practical Takeaway
As practitioners, we must always seek to inspire and encourage our patients in all levels of health, disease, and suffering. The concept of the Seven Affects is a powerful tool to educate and inspire patients to see how they can directly contribute to their health and healing in both acute and chronic disease – particularly conditions falling under the diagnostic schema of “long disease.” Often a kind word, a compassionate presence and sincere listening are just as important as acupuncture and herbal medicine.
