According to the theory of traditional Chinese medicine, the cause of depressive syndrome is emotional upsets. Pathogenically, if the liver fails to control the dispersion, the stagnant liver qi attacks the spleen, which impairs the spleen's function of transportation and transformation and the heart is deprived of nourishment. Thus, disorders of the viscera, yin, yang, qi and blood appear. At the initial stage, depressive syndrome is attributed to the excess type. It is usually caused by stagnation of qi, complicated by blood stagnation, fire transformation, phlegm accumulation and food retention.

But prolonged cases will change from the excess type into the deficiency type, and there may appear different pathological changes of the heart, spleen, liver or kidneys, as a result of different conditions of the involved zang-fu organs and of the consumption of qi, blood, yin or yang. According to the clinical manifestations and its pathogensis, depressive syndrome is mainly seen in neurasthenia, hysteria and anxiety in western medicine, and also in perimenopausal syndrome and reactive psychosis.