Emotional instability refers to drastic shift of strong emotions, often with minor or no obvious cause. There are several possible cause of emotional instability:
1) unbalance of neurotransmitter
Lack of serotonin may lead to depression, and abnormal level of dopamine and/or serotonin may cause bipolar disorder, where patients will swing between maniac phase and depression phase.
2) environment: life-affecting events
Too much sorrow or anger or fright may lead to prolonged emotional instability. When encounter with catastrophic life-changing events, some people may be unable to adjust themselves and develop this type of mental instabilities.
Treatment:
The normal treatment for emotional instability is basically psychoanalytic, in which the practitioner will listen to the patient non-judgmentally. Then the practitioner will find a way to alter patients' self-defeating thoughts, thus changing the way patients view the world.
How do we treat it:
In TCM, we use acupuncture for treating emotional instability.
The heart meridian, which is in charge of mind and spirit. We will calm down this meridian if the patient is usually excited, and activate it when the patient is depressed.
The second one is the liver meridian. This meridian is in control of emotions. we will diagnosis the liver function, to check is it too strong or too weak. if too strong, we can use acupuncture or herb to discourage it. otherwise just to encourage and nutrition it.
So you can see, that our target is just to adjust the balance of your body. let the organs function back the their best status, so you will feel well.