How does Chinese medicine describe the special traits that are subsumed under the term ADHD?


First of all, the special nature of the Chinese medical terminology must be pointed out. Without further explanation, these may raise questions rather than provide explanations. Therefore, a small digression is inevitable at this point.

Chinese medicine considers the specificities subsumed under the term ADHD as an imbalance of different biofunctional and organ systems.

Chinese medicine-related (differential) diagnoses such as 'liver-qi stagnation', possibly an underlying 'liver-blood' or 'liver-yang deficiency', often accompanied by 'ascending liver-yang' or even 'liver-fire', or a (constiutionally) weakened qi of the functional circuit 'spleen/pancreas/stomach' or a constitutionally weakened 'jing' of the functional system of the 'kidneys/adrenal glands' come into consideration (cf. e.g. Ni et al.., 2014).


What's this all about?

In Chinese philosophies, there was, and is no strict separation into the 'exclusively physical' and the 'exclusively mental/spiritual' per se.

In Chinese medicine, certain processes concerning the spirit and the 'soul' - in Chinese, most closely corresponding to the concepts of shen and ling - are associated with the respective zang fu, the internal organs or organ systems/functional circuits.

The term organ system is apllied because each yin or yang organ describes a concept consisting of the actual organ, its local and systemic tasks, including its influences on certain tissues or structures, a respective sensory organ, the 'meridians' emanating from it or leading to it, as well as its associated psycho-emotional correspondences.

Extensive associations such as times of day and seasons, cardinal points etc. form the basis of the Wu Xing or 5 phases of change theory, an important school of thought within TCM, which is based on macrocosmic (i.e. occurring in the natural environment) and microcosmic correspondences (i.e. in this case the human being and their organ systems) derived from observations of nature.

 
Also important and indispensable for the understanding of Chinese medicine is the postulated idea that all living organisms are flowed through by a kind of vital energy, the qi. Qi is composed of endogenous qi and the qing qi of the air we breathe, and is furtherly divided into many different forms with specific functionalities, similar to the understanding of blood in biomedicine with its division into the erythrocytes, the 'red blood cells', the thrombocytes ('coagulation platelets'), and the different proportions of leukocytes, the 'white blood cells' including their many subgroups and their manifold functions.


With regard to the descriptions of ADHD at the beginning of this paragraph, the 'organ systems'/functional circuits of the liver, spleen/pancreas and kidney/adrenal glands are of particular interest:

The functional circuit 'liver' has the physiological task of ensuring the flow of qi, blood and emotions throughout the organism. The 'liver-yin' and the 'liver-blood' have a structuring, rather 'balancing', and parasympathetic quality. If the latter-mentioned is in a weakened state (e.g. constitutionally), the 'liver-yang', or in more severe cases even 'liver fire' or the 'liver wind' can 'rise' and cause complaints like tension or migrainic headaches, high blood pressure, neurological tics, dizziness, outbursts of anger or rage.

'Stagnant Liver Qi' is associated with pain (in different areas of the body, depending on where the stagnation occurs), e.g. dysmenorrhea or gastric mucosal events, or with depression and frustration.

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The organ system of the 'spleen/pancreas' is in turn associated with the ability to focus thoughts in a mental and psycho-emotional context. A weakened 'spleen-qi' or 'spleen-yang' due to constitutional or lifestyle factors may lead to attention and concentration difficulties, to a feeling of 'lack of rootedness' or circling thoughts/chains of thoughts, which are often associated with sleep disorders. On a physical level, for example, some gastrointestinal complaints, metabolic diseases, connective tissue issues, menstrual disorders or particular immunological or respiratory complaints are associated with the functional circuit 'spleen/pancreas'.

The functional circuit 'kidney/adrenal gland' is closely associated with the constitution of a human being, their urogenital and reproductive systems.

In the biomedical context of ADHD, the axis of the hypothalamus, pituitary and adrenal gland (HPA axis) that is immensely relevant in terms of corticoids (i.e. cortisol, colloquially known as 'stress hormone'), as well as dopaminergic, adrenergic and noradrenergic (i.e. dopamine, adrenaline and noradrenaline) processes are closely associated with the Chinese medicine concepts of the functional circuits of 'liver' and 'kidneys'.

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Chinese medicine attempts to regulate both the respective zang fu (organ systems) and the shen (mind), as well as the yi (cognitive capacity). Therefore, acupucture, Chinese herbal medicine, and Qi Gong may be applied.

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