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KMID : 0378019730160120106
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New Medical Journal
1973 Volume.16 No. 12 p.106 ~ p.112
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The Concept of Mental Illness According to "Tong Ui Po Kam´
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Abstract
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The Materials on the concepts of mental disorders reviewed in Tong Ui Po Kam, the most popular book of the Oriental medicine in Korea even in the present time, were examined from the psychiatric and psychological standpoint comparing them with the modern Western concept and classification of the mental illness. The conclusions are as followed:
1) Tong Ui Po Kam differentiates the state of excitation and overactivity "Kwang" from the state of extreme passivity ´and -withdrawal "Chon" as the different disease entity. The regressive behaviour accompanying by vivid. visual and auditory hallucinations was designated as "Sabyung" (the--disease of evil). The state of febrile delirium and mood disturbances resulted from psychosomatic interactions were also defined as different illness.
2) The boundaries of mental disorders were, however, not strictly divided as did in the Western medicine. The mental disorders are never a separated one from the somatic disorders and all diseases can be transformed into another cathegory of illness. Thus, the classification of the disease is according to this book not so important as in Western medicine.
3) The causes of mental disorders are, according to the ancient Chinese cosmology the disharmony between Yin and Yang, breach of Tao, the obstruction of the heart cavity (Shim Kong) by "Dam" (Sputum), the injury of the internal organs through heat, cold or emotional reactions of the patient.
4) It seems that all such explanations on the cause of illness reveal certain psychological implications rather than philosophical and physiological meaning. In the certain descriptions on the pathology and treatment of the illness, primitive ideas such as soul-loss, spirit intrusion and corresponding magical treatment of such demonic powers can be recognized. The concepts of mental disorders can be regarded as the symbolical expressions of unconscious psychological process of many authors of Eastern medicine reflected upon the somatic phenomena, as C. G. Jung once had suggested. This is only a preliminary work, therefore, the more extensive investigations are needed in future.
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