Through combing and analyzing the research on traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) thinking methods in 2019, the research results on TCM thinking methods are summarized from the aspects of Xiang thinking, TCM clinical thinking, comparison of Chinese and western thinking and five elements thinking. It is pointed out that the concepts and views on the Xiang metaphor，process metaphor，and method and Xiang thinking, dual metaphor of the concept of Xiang, the “flower principle” of the structural characteristics of Xiang and analogy, and the reveal of thinking mechanism of Xiang such as comparative study of Xiang and conceptual metaphor is an outstanding characteristics of TCM research. Meanwhile, there are still problems in the research such as unclear concepts, logical reasoning errors, and generalization of Xiang thinking, which need to be solved urgently.