Pathogenesis is one of the core concepts of traditional Chinese medicine(TCM)theory，and it is significant to identify the pathogenesis in TCM clinical diagnosis and treatment.Through summarizing the discourse and development about pathogenesis proposed by ancient and modern doctors，connotative elements of TCM pathogenesis，including etiology，nature of disease，location of disease，symptoms of disease，conditions of disease，pathological factors and trend of disease are summarized.The idea of integrating clinical individualized information in TCM based on pathogenesis，and exploring to establish an evaluation method for TCM clinical individualization is put forward.