Hippocratic–Galenic humoral medicine

Domain XI · Traditional medicine & indigenous healing · Hippocrates, Galen · ancient Greece

What it is

Hippocratic–Galenic medicine was a complete medical system, not a psychotherapy. It held that health depends on the balance of four humours (blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile), which correspond to four elements, four qualities (hot, cold, dry, wet), the seasons, the stages of life and four…

Format

• This entry is a medical system and a historical tradition, not a staged therapy, so there is no published session protocol for it. The framework below has two parts: the structure of the system as its sources describe it, and the psychotherapist's own phases of work alongside it.
• No source sets session counts for this work; the phases and criteria below are, built on the CFI's published structure.

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• Who holds authority. Historical Galenic medicine has no living licensing body; its authority today is scholarly (historians of medicine and medical museums). In India, Unani is one of the systems defined as "Indian System of Medicine" under the NCISM Act 2020 (Act No. 14 of 2020); a Board of Unani, Siddha and Sowa-Rigpa sets education standards and recognises qualifications; a National Register is kept; and only…
• Version followed: Hippocratic–Galenic humoral medicine as medical historians describe it (Royal College of Physicians Museum, 2025; Telles-Correia and Gama Marques, 2015; Laios et al., 2012), with its living successors described as their own official bodies publish them: Unani as presented by India's AYUSH services and regulated under the National Commission for Indian System of Medicine Act 2020, and Persian…
• What remains today. The system survives in three forms. (1) Unani, which its Indian government sources trace to Hippocrates and describe as developed in Arab and Persian lands and brought to the Indian subcontinent about a thousand years ago; it is a recognised Indian system of medicine with regulated education and registration. (2) Persian (Iranian traditional) medicine, taught in Iranian university faculties that…

Evidence status, as the guide reports it

• Evidence status. Humours were discredited as real bodily substances in the 1800s. One review of medieval Persian psychiatry notes that some traditional remedies have since been studied but most remain unexamined. Independent systematic reviews of Unani or Persian-medicine treatments for mental…

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Is there physical contact? Was it explained beforehand, and do you feel free to say no or stop at any point?
• Does it involve any substance, plant preparation, remedy or supplement? Has your doctor or prescriber been told, especially about any medication you take?
• Does it involve fasting, a special diet or 'detox'? Have you discussed this with your doctor?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• lecturing; implying the client's living tradition is "just history". It is working when the client feels less alone and more hopeful.
• silence about remedies after a dismissive comment from you or another clinician. It is working when the client raises disagreements openly.
• you drifting into advice on remedies (stop, and route); the client minimising symptoms. It is working when every physical concern has a named clinician following it.
• fatalism that blocks treatment; risk hidden behind "it's just my nature" (assess). It is working when the client can hold both their temperament and the possibility of change.
• delay in urgent medical care; procedures on children by unqualified people; a family's fear of being judged, which can end engagement. It is working when the risk is assessed by the right…

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.