Five-element theory and childhood bereavement: a heuristic model.
Patricia Barlow-Irick. Albuquerque, NM. 1997.
My brother, a student of Chinese acupuncture, challenged me to put childhood bereavement in terms the the Chinese five-element theory. Through a number of lively discussions festooned with star-shaped charts, we developed a heuristic analogical model of bereavement dynamics. This model attends to some of the complexity of human dynamics in a way we both feel is more satisfying than the incomplete models generated from typical psychological research. One of the problems with the deductive methods of typical research is that the end product is often merely an accumulation of unrelated facts. The Chinese system, however, offers a model based on health and system dynamics, encompassing the correspondences and interrelationships between all parts of our material and spiritual beings with, the environment in an open-ended developmental context (Hammer, 1990). The Chinese model of health care does not divide the psyche from the soma, but rather concerns all aspect of lifestyle. Illness in the Chinese model is an expression of the personal violation of one's nature and calls upon the person to become aware of how he or she is interferring with the flow of nature (ibid, p. 389).
In this appendix, I present an integration of western psychological research and theory in the context of a Chinese Five-Element system model of the process of childhood bereavement. Whether or not the Five-Element system has any general validity is not pertainent to this discussion, but rather it is used as a framework to organize the available research, conceptualize a systems level trauma, and identify probably points and methodologies for bereavement postvention and support.
The Five-Element system provides a basic template for the understanding of energy flow within any system. This energy is refered to as Qi and is the life force. The five elements, or phases, correspond to the five categories of nature. Energy flows through these categories/elements in predictable patterns. There are three major pathways that energy can flow from one element to another.
Normally energy will flow harmoniously through the generating and controlling cycles. If the energy builds up and cannot be effectively released through these cycles, it will flow backward into the insulting cycle. The goal of Chinese therapy is to keep the energy flowing through the generating and controlling cycles in a balanced way. States to be avoided include little energy in the system, energy bogging down at one of the element/nodes, and excess energy being channeled into the insulting cycle.
The nodes of these diagrams are the five elements: Fire, Earth, Metal, Water, and Wood (clockwise from top).
The elements are analogs for five basic categories of reality. They cannot be understood in an absolute or concrete way, for until one is thoroughly trained to look at the world from a five-element perspective, these factors will be ambigous and confusing. Here is a brief chart relating the elements to psychological categories, but the reader is cautioned these categories are only rough analogies.
| ELEMENT | WATER | WOOD | FIRE | EARTH | METAL (air) |
| Yin Organs | Kidneys | Liver | Hear | Spleen | Lungs |
| Yang Organs | Bladder | Gall bladder | Small Intestine | Stomach, Pancreas | Large Intestine |
| Quality | Inwardly gathering | Generating | Expanding developing | Stabilizing Harmonizing | Contracting, Releasing |
| Positive Emotions | Gentleness, Openness | Kindness | Love, Joy | Fairness, | Righteousness Courage |
| Negative Emotions | Fear, Stress | Anger, Impatience | Hate | Worry, Anxiety | Sadness, Depression |
| Psychological Qualities | Willpower, Determination, Commitment | Control, Decisiveness | Warmth, Vitality, Excitement | Ability to Integrate, Stabilize, Feel Centered and Balanced | Strength, Substantiality, Focus |
| Psychological Structure | Nurturance, Heredity, Historical Pattern (habit) | Cognitive Structure, World-view, Outlook toward the future | Creativity, Awareness of External Events, External world | Self (sensu Jung), subconscious, inner foundation | Outward Personality, Characteristics |
| ELEMENT | WATER | WOOD | FIRE | EARCH | METAL |
We can look at the relationships between each of these elements through each of the cycles. Below I show the relationship between psychological structures through the generating and controlling cycles. It is important to remember that this energy will not just be limited to expression in psychological structure, but could be directed into any forms of the element. For example the energy could move from a psychological structure to a physical organ. It could remain positive or become negative, or it can even be transfered to another person. These simplified charts are merely examples of patterns through one substrate and do not represent a neccessary cycle of flow.
THE GENERATING CYCLE
| TENDANCY | IMAGE | PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALOG |
|---|---|---|
| Water creates Wood | Tree grows with moisture | Nurturance and history effect cognitive structure |
| Wood creates Fire | A burning stick. | Cognitive structure precipitates awareness of external event & predispose event occurrence. |
| Fire creates Earth | Ashes after a fire. | Awareness of external events makes impressions in the subconscious inner substrate. |
| Earth creates Metal | Metal ore is purified. | Subconcious inner substrate manifests as outward personality character characteristic. |
| Metal creates Water | Water available through a metal pipe. | Outward personality characteristics influence the availabity of nurturance |
THE CONTROLLING CYCLE
| TENDANCY | IMAGE | PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALOG |
|---|---|---|
| Wood controls Earth | Vegetation prevents erosion. | Cognitive structures and the world view stabilize the expression of the inner self. |
| Earth controls Water | Stream banks and dams channel the flow of water. | The subconscious inner self channels the flow of nurturance and historical patterns. |
| Water controls Fire | Putting out fire with water. | Habits limit spontaniety and habituation limits awareness of external events. |
| Fire controls Metal | Forging steel. | Creativity and the external world shape personality characteristics. |
| Metal controls Wood | A woodchopper's axe | The outward personality characteristics (traits) regulate world view and cognitive structure. |
In normal psychological life, one would expect to pass through times when conditions were unstable and out of balance. Each person will have their own unique characteristics that modify the flow of energy. All experiences will affect the cycle, perhaps depressing or facilitating energy flow, depleting energy or daming it up at some point without healthy release. Death of a parent would be an experience that would strongly affect the cycle beyond typical means of coping through the generating and controlling cycles. The system overloads and is in danger of short-circuiting. Energy flows backward into the insulting cycle. This insulting cycle seems to explain almost all the psychological ills of childhood bereavement.
INSULTING CYCLE (and bereavement effects)
| TENDANCY | IMAGE | PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALOG (bereavement sequence) |
|---|---|---|
| Fire insulting Water | Water evaporates as Steam | Creativity changes memories to fantasies. External events break into security system. Death takes away parent, leaving other parent less capable of providing for security needs of child. |
| Water insulting Earth | A flood tears away earth. | Unpleasant memories weaken core self. Trauma to security threatens core self. Overwhelming sense of external insecurity creates inner insecurity and cuts off any sense of stability of the core self. Emotional turmoil. |
| Earth insulting Wood | A landslide destroys a forest | Subconscious eruption fractures world view or ego structure. Damage to core self re-organizes cognitive structures towards negative beliefs. Emotional turmoil precipitates a reorganization of cognitive structures that includes vulneratbility, immortality, and proximity to danger. The world is a bad place. No hope. |
| Wood insulting Air/Metal | Wooden box filled with stagnant air. | Negative world view damages or destroys sense of the future. Personality becomes rigid and closed. Depression and sadness. |
| Air/Metal insulting Fire | A candle extinguished by wind. | Negative personality traits and expectation for the future block experience of here and now, or turn creativity to destructiveness. Child reacts with anger or becomes obsessed with controlling events. |
In this model, treatment comes through adjusting and balancing the energy flow if it is out of control, or increasing a balanced energy flow if the child has responded by dampening the system though denial or repression. One can approach the problem through either the generating cycle or the controlling cycle by looking at the emotions being expressed as indicative of where the energy is greatest and where its potential for positive release is limited.
We can look at these elements and cycles for a prescriptive regime. Figure 2 shows healthy mourning in a five-element model. It is important to remember that while I have focused on issues of bereavment, all problematic conditions of human experience could be seen as energy out of balance and should respond in similar patterns. Using this as a prescriptive model an excess of energy in the wood element might be manifested as anger. Kindness and gentleness would not be the best therapy in this model, for, as water, it would only generate more wood energy. Instead the channel to the fire element should be cleared and the controlling element, metal, stimulated. In practice this might be placing the child in a situation that requires creativity such as storytelling or art therapy (stimulating fire) and making the child aware of his own innate courage, the structure of the environment, and the special qualities of his personality (stimulating metal).
Another example shows how it might be important to limit exogenous generating factors that are contributing to the problem. Excess fear (water) would be dealt with by opening channels to wood and stimulating earth. This might be done by givng the child a sense of control, even if it simply means expressing their anger. Earth might be stimulated through the childs sense of fairness and by highlighting what ever source of stability that is available to them. But clearly, if the survivng parent or other persons in the environment are responding to the condition with sadness, depression, or rigidity, the child is likely to suffer an increase of water element from this transfer of metal energy. It may be neccessary to work with the other people in the child's world in order to limit the generation of yet more fear.
Many typical Western theraputic treatments for complicated bereavement can be understood in terms of five-element patterns. For example, excess sadness and depression (metal) might be dealt with by symbolically opening channels to water and stimulating fire. Gentleness, nurturance and adherence to daily normative habits help pull the excess energy into the water element. Stimulation of the fire element, though exercise, awareness and cultivation of excitement, or a focus on the external world may help to control the metal conditions. These are both common sense methods of dealing with depressed clients.
This is in principle a heuristic and testable model. The practical difficulties of testing this model arise because any aspect of the client's experience will influence the outcome and pattern of energy flow. Outlets for Qi energy might involve anything experienced including dreams, events, medical conditions, other people, or sensory stimulation. It would require a very competent assesment of energy patterns and analogies to analyze this flow on an individual basis (see Figure 3). It is interesting that Balk's (1996) adaptive tasks for bereavement fit perfectly into this five-element theory (see Fig. 1, frontpiece). The ancient Taoists, who originated this system, were empirical thinkers and kept detailed records of patterns, predictions and outcomes. If we developed the understanding of five-element analogy, we might also find that this model is useful in a non-reductionistic approach to counseling.
REFERENCES:
Balk, D.E. (1996). Models for understanding adolescents coping with bereavement. Death Studies, 20, 367-387.
Hammer, L. (1990). Dragon rises - red bird flies. Barrytown, NY: Stanton Hill Press, Inc.
Cite this paper as:
Barlow-Irick, Patricia (1997). Five-element theory and childhood bereavement: a heuristic model. World Wide Web http://www.largocanyon.org/largo/heroes/elements.htm
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