it means it can help it or promote it. as for restraint, as in "metal restrains wood", it means that it limits it, it limits.
so these functions and transformations are what make the relationships between the elements so complicated.
that's what Mr. Chen was talking about.
TCM is actually full of dialectical thinking.not absolute, or isolationist thinking, that promotion and restraint is restraint.
within restraint lies promotion and within promotion lies restraint.
this forms a very complicated relationship.