Prince Sado symptoms of impulsive actions from unfair treatment from his father, king Yeongjo, led him to threaten officials and often beat his eunuchs.
[4] In 1983, psychiatrist Keh-Ming Lin from UCLA Medical Center suggested that hwabyeong was a culture-bond syndrome, after treating three Korean-American women.
In holistic medicine the containment of anger in hwabyeong disturbs the balance of the five bodily elements, resulting in the development of psychosomatic symptoms such as panic, insomnia, and depression after a long period of repressed feelings.
Additional stress of financial, domestic abuse, extramarital affairs, and social stigma can contribute to hwabyeong symptoms.
Outside of Korea, informally hwabyeong may be mistaken as a reference to a psychological profile marked by a short temper, or explosive, generally bellicose behavior.
To the contrary, hwabyeong is a traditional psychological term used to refer to a condition characterized by passive suffering, is roughly comparable to depression, and is typically associated with older women.
To be more successful, psychiatrists might need to incorporate the teachings from traditional and religious healing methods or the use of han-puri, which is the sentiment of resolving, loosening, unraveling, and appeasing negative emotions with positive ones.
One example of han-puri would be a mother who has suffered from poverty, less education, a violent husband, or a harsh mother-in-law, that can be solved many years later by the success of her son for which she had endured hardships and sacrifices.