The Phenomenon of Pathological Dissociation in the Ancient Chinese Medicine Literature

ABSTRACT

Dissociative symptoms and disorders have been reported in many different cultures. If pathological dissociation is naturally occurring and related to adverse experiences, such phenomena should have been witnessed and portrayed before the modern age. To investigate whether this is the case, the author made use of the rich ancient Chinese medicine literature and looked for descriptions of pathological dissociation in medical documents written by ancient Chinese medical practitioners. In this paper, the author presents six cases selected from the ancient Chinese medicine literature. The phenomenon of pathological dissociation is observed in these cases. This is the first report of case descriptions of pathological dissociation documented in Chinese cultures before 1900.

KEYWORDS:

• Ancient China
• cross-cultural psychiatry
• pathological dissociation
• traditional Chinese medicine

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Dr. Colin A. Ross, Dr. Onno Van der Hart and Dr. Chun kit Chan for their help and support in this paper.