Is Your Child’s Illness — or Your Spouse’s — Coming from the Family? Doctor Luo Dalun on Family-Sourced Constrained Liver Qi: the Whole Family Needs to Adjust Together

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Dear friends, good morning, everyone. Today we’ll continue chatting about Chinese medicine by voice. First, let me tell you about a situation I meet all the time — in the last couple of days alone, two parents each brought their child to ask me questions, and both said their child was unwell.

Opening: a three-year-old whose tongue comes out pointed

The first child was brought by his mother. The moment Doctor Luo saw the child’s tongue — it was pointed.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: You may remember I’ve talked about this kind of tongue before: a normal tongue sticks out in an oval shape. If a tongue comes out in a pointed shape, it means this person has constrained liver qi (gan qi bu shu) — liver qi stagnation. “Shu” here is the character meaning “to spread out” — the liver qi cannot spread, it is constrained, and the mood is bad.

A three-year-old child — how could he have a bad mood? No enrichment classes, no academic demands. Why?

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: I explained to the parents: a child this small already shows a tendency toward constrained liver qi, so in raising him, you must never add pressure. So how did this child’s problem form? It’s usually because the parents themselves have constrained liver qi — the parents’ stress is high, and it affects the child. Children sense emotions extremely keenly, so gradually the child develops constrained liver qi too. In some cases the mother already had constrained liver qi during pregnancy, and the child’s constitution is affected by the parents; but more commonly, parents today are under enormous pressure.

Just as he was speaking, Doctor Luo glanced at the mother — her state was that very tense look: “Doctor Luo, what should we do? I’m so scared.”

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: You see, she was in a very tense state. This kind of parent easily causes the child’s liver qi to become constrained, because the parents’ stress is huge. I said: this is a problem you, as the mother, have to adjust first — your stress affects the child. And what did she say? She said: “Compared with his father, I’m much better — his father is the one with real stress!” Do you see it? In this family there are two highly tense, sensitive parents, and the result is that the child developed this problem.

The second parent: so tense he couldn’t stop blinking

Next, Doctor Luo saw a boy, a little older, also brought by his father — “our child isn’t healthy” — and he listed a string of health problems.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: I looked at this child’s tongue, and it was also a pointed tongue. I said: this child is under pressure — is the atmosphere at home very tense? Are your pressures too great? Then I observed a little more: this parent’s expression was extremely tense — he couldn’t stop blinking. When I saw that state, I knew this was a nervous-type father.

Doctor Luo gave the same guidance: parents need to relax; don’t be anxious all day. Being extremely nervous about parenting and feeling pressured all the time — that emotion transmits to the child — sometimes it comes from the workplace, and it still passes on to the child.

The entrepreneur’s wife: when her husband comes home, the whole family draws in a cold breath

Children are one thing — what about adults? Doctor Luo said that when he teaches at business schools, his students are all entrepreneurs. One lady was the wife of a very famous entrepreneur; her health was poor, and she came for a consultation.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: I looked at her and said: you have constrained liver qi, liver qi stagnation, and a bad mood. With all that money at home, what are you so tense about? She said: you have no idea — my husband’s company is so big, his daily pressure is enormous. So every evening when he comes home from work, what does the whole family do? Draw in a cold breath. Including me, including his own parents — everyone draws in a cold breath. And when he leaves for work in the morning, the whole family lets out a sigh of relief. Why is that, friends? It’s because he transmits the pressure he gets at his workplace to his family. There’s a lot of this.

The old lady’s tears: even in the richest family, a mother can be depressed

One more example. Doctor Luo was once giving a lecture in a provincial capital, and a very big local entrepreneur said his mother was unwell — her stomach was bad, and her heart was bad too. The company had many real-estate projects, so a real-estate project manager brought the boss’s mother to see the doctor.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: I was preparing before the lecture, and they were waiting for me. I took one look — the old lady stuck out her tongue, and it was pointed. I said: this old lady has pressure. It’s very possible that all the illnesses in your body are connected to the constraint in your heart.

The moment he said this, the real-estate manager objected: “Our boss is the richest man in town — how could his mother be depressed? That’s impossible!” He was completely dismissive.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: But the instant my words fell, the old lady’s eyes had already reddened. I thought: now do you see, can she be depressed or not? So following this line of thinking, I told her how to adjust — there’s a formula called Chai Hu Jia Long Gu Mu Li Tang (Bupleurum, Dragon Bone and Oyster Shell Decoction), and she could soak her feet in it. After explaining, I went out to take care of other things and prepare my lecture slides.

When Doctor Luo came back, a circle of people was gathered — the old lady was crying in the middle, and everyone was comforting her: “Auntie, don’t cry. Auntie, try to think it over.”

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: I was curious — what happened? Why was she crying? It turned out that between the old lady and her husband — rich as the family was — their temperaments were completely incompatible. The old man bullied her every day, always fierce — you must do this, don’t be fierce like that — fierce his whole life. So at home the old lady was wronged day after day, and the result was constrained liver qi. Do you see it? The old lady had a belly full of grievances.

Doctor Luo only prescribed five doses, for her to soak her feet.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Five days later they called: Doctor Luo, good news — the old lady’s physical symptoms are all gone; her stomach is fine, and her heart is fine. But — the old lady has asked for a divorce. What do we do about this? Please help us think of something. I didn’t even know how to answer: I said, you’re in real estate — you can build two villas: the old lady stays in one, the old man stays in the other, and hire two nannies. The two of you shouldn’t be squabbling every day; don’t fight in the same room. Would that work? Of course, that was just a casual suggestion — I don’t know how they finally handled it.

What is “family-sourced constrained liver qi”? A term invented by Doctor Luo himself

After these examples, Doctor Luo explained why he was telling them: constrained liver qi — liver qi stagnation — is a major cause of illness in our time. And much of that constrained liver qi is family-sourced — “jia” as in family, “yuan” as in source: it originates from the family.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: If the family cannot get along harmoniously, and one person has emotional problems, it affects other people. Sometimes parents influence children; sometimes spouses influence each other; sometimes the elderly influence the younger generation; sometimes the younger generation influences the elderly. I’ve seen this kind of thing far too much. Bad mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relations, couples quarrelling and affecting the children, and all these kinds of pressure — all of them can give people constrained liver qi.

Doctor Luo pointed out especially: some constrained liver qi is formed by the person themselves — their own outlook on life is off, they can’t see things clearly, and they make themselves depressed. But some problems are not the person’s own problem at all — they are the problems of other family members — transmitting pressure into them, and the result is that another family member develops constrained liver qi. There is a great deal of this illness nowadays.

A new requirement for treatment: the family must reach a consensus

This raises a new requirement for how we treat illness.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Once we know an illness is family-sourced, then when we truly adjust the body, the whole family must reach a consensus. So in many cases, I hope the whole family comes to the consultation. Sometimes when the whole family comes, I explain to the patient — but on the surface I’m explaining to the patient; in fact I’m speaking for the person sitting beside them to hear — why? Because words spoken by someone in the medical profession, they can absorb a little.

Sometimes Doctor Luo even has the whole family sit down seriously and “holds a meeting” with them.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: I say: this illness — treating the person himself is possible, but it won’t be cured. It will improve for a while, but it won’t stay well. Why? Because it’s caused by problems within the family. Now I’m going to tell you: you must reach an agreement. Do you want him to get better or not? If you want this child to get better, then your whole family must hold a meeting and unify your thinking. Otherwise one of you goes east and the other goes west — there’s conflict — and this child still won’t recover. So you must reach agreement. And sometimes it can’t be resolved face to face, so I send them home to hold a meeting.

There is one detail Doctor Luo sees very clearly:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: In fact, in many cases the family members don’t all show up — the one who often doesn’t come is the root of the illness. He knows it very well in his own heart, and that’s why this kind of person who hides and doesn’t come is himself resisting. So what to do? I say: this I can’t explain any further. I want you to go home and hold a meeting. Your job is this — if you want this person to get well, the whole family must meet and reach agreement, and together adjust the atmosphere at home. Only then can this illness be cured, and only then can this prescription take effect. Otherwise, if the family is full of contradictions and conflict — will the prescription work? Very likely it won’t have any effect at all.

Doctor Luo said this actually places a higher demand on modern medicine.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: When treating illness, you have to consider the social dimension — the problems in the patient’s family and workplace. Every person belongs to a family. If in the family — the place where you rest, the place where you should be most relaxed — there is a source of pressure, then it will make people sick, and sometimes very sick. So for this kind of family-sourced constrained liver qi, we need to pay serious attention.

A disharmonious family — or one member of the family whose temperament, disposition, or way of thinking is problematic — can cause another family member to develop constrained liver qi.

The slow work: changing a family member’s way of thinking is harder than writing a prescription

Finally, Doctor Luo talked about how this illness is treated — and sometimes it is very slow.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: The adjustment of family-sourced constrained liver qi has no special trigger point. It’s possible that some family members simply cannot change their original way of thinking. So this is slow work — you need to learn a bit at a time. Sometimes finding a famous doctor to write a prescription is simple, but changing the way of thinking of one member of the family — I think that is extremely difficult. So what do you do? You keep learning, don’t rush, and infiltrate a little at a time — transmit this correct way of thinking, for example the system of traditional Chinese learning (guoxue) — to him bit by bit.

That’s why, in the “Da Lun Academy” (his online lecture hall), Doctor Luo keeps lecturing on the Dao De Jing and the Di Zi Gui (Standards for Being a Good Student and Child) — why?

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: The Dao De Jing people are quite willing to hear — “oh, this seems mysterious”; the Di Zi Gui people don’t want to hear it — “what is this, so simple?” Actually the two talk about the same thing: the Dao De Jing talks about the Dao — how the world operates; the Di Zi Gui talks about how you act. The two connect with each other — in fact, most of the traditional learning is interconnected. Why do I talk about these things? It’s so that if you have the good fortune to encounter and understand some heart-nourishing (yang xin) content, I believe it is very effective for adjusting the family, and for adjusting the health of family members. So this is what we need to do in the future.

Closing: I invented this term, but it exists everywhere

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Today I introduced family-sourced constrained liver qi — this concept is my own invention, but I tell you, it is a phenomenon that exists universally in society. In the future we’ll gradually introduce how many types there are and how we adjust them. That’s all for today — if there’s a chance later, I’ll chat with you about more. Thank you, everyone. See you next time.

Compiled from Doctor Luo Dalun’s talks (Constrained Liver Qi series — Family-Sourced Constrained Liver Qi).