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Unbalanced Flows in the Subtle Body: Tibetan Understandings of Psychiatric Illness and How to Deal With It

Much of what Western medicine classifies as psychiatric illness is understood by Tibetan thought as associated with imbalance of rlung (wind, breath). Rlung has a dual origin in Indian thought, combining elements from Ayurvedic medicine and Tantric Buddhism. Tibetan theories of rlung seem to corresp...

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Autor principal: Samuel, Geoffrey
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer US 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6522444/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30788755
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10943-019-00774-1
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author Samuel, Geoffrey
author_facet Samuel, Geoffrey
author_sort Samuel, Geoffrey
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description Much of what Western medicine classifies as psychiatric illness is understood by Tibetan thought as associated with imbalance of rlung (wind, breath). Rlung has a dual origin in Indian thought, combining elements from Ayurvedic medicine and Tantric Buddhism. Tibetan theories of rlung seem to correspond in significant ways with Western concepts of the autonomic nervous system (ANS), and Western medicine too has associated psychiatric issues with ANS problems. But what is involved in relating Tibetan ideas of rlung to Western ideas of the emotions and the ANS? The article presents elements of the two systems and then explores similarities and differences between them. It asks whether the similarities could be the basis for a productive encounter between Tibetan and Western modes of understanding and treating psychiatric illness. What could Western psychiatry learn from Tibetan approaches in this area?
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spelling pubmed-65224442019-06-05 Unbalanced Flows in the Subtle Body: Tibetan Understandings of Psychiatric Illness and How to Deal With It Samuel, Geoffrey J Relig Health Original Paper Much of what Western medicine classifies as psychiatric illness is understood by Tibetan thought as associated with imbalance of rlung (wind, breath). Rlung has a dual origin in Indian thought, combining elements from Ayurvedic medicine and Tantric Buddhism. Tibetan theories of rlung seem to correspond in significant ways with Western concepts of the autonomic nervous system (ANS), and Western medicine too has associated psychiatric issues with ANS problems. But what is involved in relating Tibetan ideas of rlung to Western ideas of the emotions and the ANS? The article presents elements of the two systems and then explores similarities and differences between them. It asks whether the similarities could be the basis for a productive encounter between Tibetan and Western modes of understanding and treating psychiatric illness. What could Western psychiatry learn from Tibetan approaches in this area? Springer US 2019-02-20 2019 /pmc/articles/PMC6522444/ /pubmed/30788755 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10943-019-00774-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2019 OpenAccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Samuel, Geoffrey
Unbalanced Flows in the Subtle Body: Tibetan Understandings of Psychiatric Illness and How to Deal With It
title Unbalanced Flows in the Subtle Body: Tibetan Understandings of Psychiatric Illness and How to Deal With It
title_full Unbalanced Flows in the Subtle Body: Tibetan Understandings of Psychiatric Illness and How to Deal With It
title_fullStr Unbalanced Flows in the Subtle Body: Tibetan Understandings of Psychiatric Illness and How to Deal With It
title_full_unstemmed Unbalanced Flows in the Subtle Body: Tibetan Understandings of Psychiatric Illness and How to Deal With It
title_short Unbalanced Flows in the Subtle Body: Tibetan Understandings of Psychiatric Illness and How to Deal With It
title_sort unbalanced flows in the subtle body: tibetan understandings of psychiatric illness and how to deal with it
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6522444/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30788755
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10943-019-00774-1
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