This page requires JavaScript. The above table should make it possible to answer questions like the following from the perspective of traditional Chinese five-elements thinking.
Actual practitioners make far more complex assessments.
Further, some orderings are different for different practitioners. Each of the five elements tends to strengthen, support, give way to, or create one of the others. Each of the five elements tends to weaken, undercut, or destroy one of the others. A deficiency or an excess of any element tends to exert unnatural strengthening or weaking influence on other elements, causing illness or distress. Illness and misfortune can be corrected by restoring the element that is too strong or weak.