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The Eight Principles

Introduction to the Eight Principles
The Eight Principles of diagnosis is a very basic but extremely important clinical diagnostic tool to
help you pinpoint the location and the nature of imbalances in the system. Using this skill set you
can determine if a presenting problem is internal or external, hot or cold, and excess or deficient
in nature.

When to use the Eight Principles

After you’ve been in clinic a while you get pretty quick at figuring out the common stuff:
wind/heat, liver qi stagnation, spleen qi deficiency, blockages in the channels, and so forth. But
every once in a while something comes along that is either a common something presenting very
uncommonly or just something that makes you scratch your head and say, “what. the. hell.”

That’s when you can really use this diagnostic method. This will give you a plan of action no
matter how bizarre things get! It will also help you cut through the chatter and draw you further
down the correct path for later too.

Interior/Exterior
This describes the current location of the problem or chief complaint in question, but
doesn’t tell you the cause or origin. It’s the Google Map location, if you will. As an
example, wind cold invasions might morph to wind-heat and left un-checked might even
more inward and become Lung damp-heat.

Once you pinpoint the current location as interior, you treat that way regardless of
whether it started on the exterior.

Cold/Heat
This describes the nature and stage of a disease. Is it heat based or is it cold based? A
predominance of yin leads to cold as it accumulates while a predominance of yang leads
 to heat as it accumulates.

Empty/Full
This is also called Excess (full) and Deficient (empty). Additionally, you might see it in
various texts described as Replete (full/excess) and Vacuous (empty/deficient).

Regardless of the descriptors, Full/Excess/Replete all describe conditions in which there

is just too much of a given something. Empty/Deficient/Vacuous all describe conditions
in which by comparison there is a lack.
[Read more…]

Yin/Yang
There are a couple of ways to interpret this. Yin/Yang can be a summary of the
categories above where yin represents interiorness, coldness, and emptiness. Yang can
represent exteriorness, heat, and fullness.

More commonly it is coupled with empty and full qualities. Yin deficiency for example
often looks like too much heat, but kind of a wimpy too much – not burning with fever,
but occasional heat surges or hot flashes. Yang deficiency is a deficit of yang/heat, so
that can express as a cold feeling that can be alleviated with hot baths, heating pads,
and so forth.

Yin excess on the other hand is a cold that is bone deep and doesn’t respond to electric
blankets or hot baths.

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