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Mental and emotional imbalances are often seen in Chinese medicine as a combination of shen or spirit disturbances and energetic imbalances.

For example, bipolar disorder,  characterized by states of mania and  depression, is seen as excessive heart fire  disturbing the spirit to manifest mania.  Stagnated liver energy creates the depressed state.

People who are experiencing bipolar disorder may have other manifestations such as obsessive compulsive disorder (a manifestation of stagnated spleen energy), delusions and suicidal thoughts.

They may also act out the agitation of the liver with anger, frustration and violence that are expressed out of proportion to situations.

People who are in relationships with people who have emotional challenges may slowly develop protective communication and interactive styles without even realizing it.

It is not unusual to see family members of people who have emotional challenges, exhibiting:

• withdrawal or avoidance behaviors (e.g. tuning out or walking away from serious conversations because of an association with emotional volatility).
• defensive behavior (e.g. interrupting, challenges with actively listening,  denying or deflecting  by  getting off topic)
• reactivity (responding to serious topics of conversations or interactions as if they are far more negative and “bigger” than what they truly are–thus conversations become unnecessarily emotionally charged–a source of stirring up energy and depleting energy out of proportion to what is being discussed)
• over-analyzing (family members may  fall into spaces of over-analyzing a myriad of permutations of possible behaviors, motives, thoughts” of their loved one–while this may help a person be more prepared to deal with the emotional volatility of a person who has emotional challenges, it creates disharmony when interacting with people who have emotional stability because  it creates an energy of not taking a stable person’s states and motives at face-value which is a subtle form of mistrust).
• mistrust (second guessing and not trusting what is being presented).

The repertoire of behaviors that allows one to survive being around a person who is emotionally or mentally unstable may become subconsciously ingrained.

As a result,  when I work with people who have been diagnosed with mental illness, I often work with spouses and other family members because it’s important to transform not only the imbalances of the person who has the mental illness, but also address the subtle dysfunction that can develop with family members in terms of communication and interactive styles.

I also work with individuals who have left relationships with people were emotionally unstable–as often there is a need to identify and release behaviors that protected one in the relationship, but may not serve new relationships.

I use a variety of techniques from the Chinese medicine system including:

• working with the acupuncture points associated with shen disturbance.
• encouraging the development of positive communication skills  to restore trust and create less dysfunctional interactive patterns by bringing awareness to the energetics of interactions.
• teaching active listening skills where people restate what they think they are hearing instead of making assumptions that their perceptions are correct and provide validating and supportive comments instead of withdrawing or shutting down conversations.
• using qi gong movement to help re-train brain grooves associated with defensive thought and behavior patterns.
• using qi gong meditation to quiet the mind and simplify mental states and mental processing (this is wonderful for people who engage in over-analysis and projection–imagining that other people have certain states that are not a true match for what the other person is truly feeling).
• using herbs to balance the energetic imbalances that lead to biochemical imbalances.

To learn more about how Chinese medicine can be used to address the challenges of common mental imbalances and restore harmonious relationships, contact me at 512.468.6588 or email me at info@aikihealing.com