Traditional Chinese Medicine maps specific emotional states to specific organ systems — grief to the lungs, fear to the kidneys, anger to the liver, worry to the spleen — recognizing that emotional experience and physical health are not parallel systems but aspects of a single qi field. This is not metaphor but a functional map developed through millennia of clinical observation. Mental distress, in this framework, is a problem of qi flow — stagnation, deficiency, or excess — addressed through acupuncture, herbs, movement, and the regulation of lifestyle.
Patan