Unravelling the puzzle of point locations a little

For many years I was completely unaware of the fact that different branches of acupuncture used anatomical locations for some of their points which differed from the ones I had been taught.  The first five or more years of my practice were spent in a complete five element bubble, since at that time JR Worsley’s college at Leamington was the largest college, and many of us who trained there were completely unaware of the existence of other schools of acupuncture.  I know I certainly was, until rumours started to spread around the acupuncture community that acupuncturists who had visited China were bringing back with them another form of acupuncture which appeared not so much to complement what we had learned, but to cast doubt in the minds of some five element acupuncturists about the validity of what they were practising.  This was first brought home to me when standing in a lunch queue at an acupuncture event and being told by a fellow acupuncturist, with some disdain in her voice, “JR has a very odd way with moxibustion”, followed by, “You don’t still only do five element acupuncture, do you?”.

I always find it interesting when I observe how often people are only too happy to grab hold of anything which might seem to undermine some practice or concept which holds a dominant position, almost as though they cannot wait to mock what before they expressed admiration for, or indeed, as in the case of many five element acupuncturists, actually used for years in their practice.  This happens all too often, particularly where somebody has been pre-eminent in one discipline.  Perhaps it is then only natural that those sheltering in the shadow of such a person may start to feel increasingly disempowered, and look for ways of asserting their own independence of thought.  This happened most famously with Carl Jung’s abandonment of his admiration for his mentor, Sigmund Freud, and the same thing happened in this country when JR Worsley’s legacy to acupuncture started being mocked in the way I encountered.

In a very short space of time this was followed by a growing onslaught by the acupuncture world in general, led unfortunately by the British Acupuncture Council, on the right of five element acupuncture to be considered as a stand-alone discipline.  I have written a lot about the difficulties I, as a devoted five element acupuncturist, have encountered in defence of my practice over the years, but in this blog I want to look at how influences from China have apparently changed this country’s approach to the location of certain points, and how far this is still something five element acupuncture needs to take into account.

The subtle undermining of an accepted five element tradition extended also to the area of point location, where people started discussing whether the five element locations used, based on a long-established tradition going back through to JR Worsley’s teachers, Jacques Lavier and Wu Wei Ping, came up against the locations modern Chinese acupuncture was now deciding for us, and which have come to be replaced by many British acupuncture colleges.  I am certainly no historian of acupuncture, nor have I any way of knowing whether the point locations which have gradually superseded some of those used in five element acupuncture have clinical validity or not.  And this is the only factor in the debate about different point locations which I feel needs to be taken into account.  If I needle a point in my well-practised five element location will a point at a slightly different location used in modern Chinese acupuncture, and following hard on its heels, modern British acupuncture, have the same clinical effect?

We sometimes think that acupuncture does not lend itself to “evidence-based research” in quite the same way as scientifically-based therapies, because it does not seem possible in a holistic discipline such as ours, and similarly in any of the different forms of psychotherapy, to obtain sufficient objective evidence of the efficacy of any clinical procedure which cannot be measured by some physical instrument.  But I think my many years of practice have provided me with just as much evidence that the points I use in treatment have actually effected material changes in my patients, and ones which are perceptible to others, provided that their senses are sufficiently honed to perceive sensory and emotional changes.

When a patient says, as one of my patients did yesterday, that “the treatment you gave me a few days ago really made me feel I could face life again,” is that not evidence of the efficacy of the particular treatment, made possible by needling specific acupuncture points?  The problem is that a reader of this blog only has my word for this, and if I were to invite observers into my practice room during the treatment, might the presence of unfamiliar faces affect the patient’s response to the treatment, and perhaps nullify it?  I do, though, have what I like to call one objective proof of the location of one of the disputed locations of an acupuncture point as a result of a moving encounter I had when consulting JR Worsley about one of my patients.

This point is the one on the Kidney meridian which in the five element point numbering is IV (Ki) 7.  As any five element acupuncturist knows, this is one of the first points in the combination of six points, needled bilaterally, used to clear one of the most serious energy blocks recognized in five element acupuncture, that of a Husband/Wife imbalance.  IV 7 is a tonification point, drawing energy from Water’s mother element, Metal, and in the five element location is at 3 ACI (cun) from the prominence of the medial malleolus.  We were taught to needle all six points before taking the pulses to see whether we had cleared the block, in effect checking whether the patient’s Heart energy - (I (Ht) 7 is the last point in the procedure - was recovering sufficiently to combat the spiritual despair which is one of the main indicators of this block.

I had taken a patient to see JR Worsley, and he had diagnosed this block, leaving me to carry out the treatment.  As this was early on in my acupuncture career, it took me some time to mark up the points, particularly those on the Kidney meridian which require much careful measuring of the leg, so when JR returned I had only had time to needle the first two points, III (Bl) 67 and IV (Ki) 7.  Before I had told him that I had not completed the whole procedure, he took the pulses, nodded at me, and said, “That’s cleared.  Good.”  It was then that I realised that the re-establishment of a strong connection between the Metal and Water elements through the tonification points must have been sufficient to clear the block.  From then on I have always checked the pulses at this early stage in the procedure just to see if this often happens, which I find it does.  Each time, though, I go on to carry out the full procedure because I recognize that needling the remaining points strengthens the connection between the elements which a H/W imbalance shows has been weakened.

From this, and from my own later experiences, corroborated by my years of clearing many H/W blocks, I know that the tonification point on the Kidney meridian is definitely where we locate it in five element acupuncture, at 3 ACI from the level of the medial malleolus.  The Kidney source point, IV (Ki) 3, too, which also forms part of the H/W procedure, is at a different location from the more recently accepted location.  I therefore recommend any practitioner trying to clear a H/W block to adopt the five element anatomical location of these two points.  I like to think that I am stepping in the footsteps of an acupuncture master in using the points exactly where he told us they were, and feel that something of the energy I felt passing from him through to the patients I brought to him for consultation is transferring itself a little to me as I needle the points where he told us to find them.

The significance of a CV/GV (Ren Mai/Du Mai) block

A CV/GV block is the deepest block of all Entry-Exit blocks, indicating that there has been some disturbance to the central line of energy passing up and down the back and front of the body.  The two pathways of Conception and Governor Vessels link together to create a great circle of energy within which we are enclosed, body and soul.  These central meridians provide the source of all the energies of the other 12 meridians which branch off from them.  They together form two great streams in the ocean of life which feed 12 subsidiary tributaries, each of which then has its own function in maintaining the cohesion and health of the whole.  Any impediment to the smooth flow around this central circle of energy must then necessarily have a great effect upon the ability of all the 12 officials to function as they should.  

I remember JR Worsley telling us that when there is a CV/GV block, a patient “lingers miserably”, whilst with a Husband/Wife imbalance they feel as though they can’t go on and just want to give up.  I think the idea of “lingering miserably” expresses well the debilitating loss of energy this block causes in a person.  From the point of view of our pulse readings, we know that all the pulses should be indicating great weakness, revealing an overall lack of energy in all the elements.  When I think the block is there, I therefore always ask my patients whether they feel exhausted most of the time, reflecting this general depletion in their energy, and inevitably they always do.  This is another guide to help me  with my diagnosis.

Since all the elements are under stress, the symptoms shown can vary greatly, depending upon which element or elements are most affected.  The elements will show that they are suffering in different ways, and a patient will often talk about all kinds of niggling symptoms which indicate an attack upon one or more elements.  In particular, the block can often appear after a Caesarian birth, where a large incision will have been made right across the CV line.  I have found it is worth needling the points to clear this block in any patient who has had this surgery, as well as in women trying to conceive, where one of the impediments to conception is often a weakness in the flow of energy along the CV meridian.  The same can also be true for men as well as woman.  The health and nature of the sperm can be affected by blocked energy along the CV meridian or between CV and GV.

Persistent problems which treatment of the elements seems unable to shift may also be caused by a CV/GV block.  For example, this may be one of the reasons why a person cannot lose weight despite being very careful with their diet, since the sluggishness of the overall level of energy throughout the meridian system slows down their elements’ ability to process food and eliminate waste material, leading to its being hoarded as fat in the body.  It is always worth considering this block, even if your fingers cannot detect an overall picture of empty pulses, whenever a symptom persists unchanged despite all the elemental treatment you give your patient. 

The importance of ensuring an interrupted flow of energy through CV and GV was brought home to me when JR Worsley told us that if the points used to clear this block were on the hand, we would do them on all our patients.  Because of their position and practitioners’ reluctance to use them routinely, the block is sadly much under-diagnosed, to the detriment of patients’ health.

 

More on Entry-Exit blocks

In my last blog (25 July) I said that I am never happy simply relying on my pulse readings to detect the appearance of blocks.  To supplement what I think the pulses are telling me, over the years I have therefore drawn up my own list of signs, both physical and emotional, which alert me to the possibility that they may be there.   

Entry-Exit blocks form the largest group of blocks.  I have always thought that they should really be called Exit-Entry blocks, because they occur between the exit points of one meridian on the Wei cycle of energy and the entry point of its adjacent meridian, for example between X (LI) 20 and XI (St) 1.  They are a sign of an over-accumulation of energy at the exit point of the first meridian leading to depletion of energy at the entry point of the following meridian, with the pulses of the Exit point having relatively excess energy compared with the pulse on the next Entry point.  In the example of a X- XI block, for some reason the Large Intestine has become unable to pass some of its energy on to the Stomach, or the Stomach has become too weak to accept it.

One of the advantages of the five element numbering of meridians i that the numerical order we use makes it easy to list the blocks.  These consist of the following blocks: II – III (SI – Bl), IV – V (Ki – HP), VI – VII (TH – GB), VIII – IX (Liv – Lu), X – XI (LI – St) and XII – I (Sp – Ht).  The remaining Entry-Exit block is that between CV and GV (Du Mai and Ren Mai), which stands somewhat apart, as being the most significant block of all.  I will write about this in another blog.

A frequently found block is a II – III (SI - Bl) block between Inner Fire and the Water element, treated by needling II 19 and III 1. Here physical symptoms can sometimes be very obvious, with patients pinching the corners of their eyes to get rid of some irritation, or rubbing itchy ears.  At the deeper level, the block can be found at a time when a person is struggling to sort out their life, often appearing as treatment progresses, and patients are aware that changes need to be made, which put a strain on the Small Intestine, the official most involved with working out such changes.

This is a block often found in children.  Their frequent ear-aches and hearing troubles can be seen in five element terms as signs of the stress life places upon a child’s Small Intestine, as it tries to make sense of all the confusing signals pouring into its ears from the world outside.  Western medicine treats these ear problems by inserting grommets.  We do it, much less drastically, by needling II 19 and III 1.  In a similar fashion, much of the disturbing increase in the prescription of steroid inhalers for young children affected by asthma could well be reduced by treating their X – XI (LI – St) blocks to counter the increasing levels of environmental and emotional pollution they are exposed to which is being inhaled by a child’s Lung official. 

All these blocks are at the exit point of one element and the entry point of the next element.  I have wondered how often there may also be blocks within an element, in other words between its yin and yang officials, which are more difficult to detect from a pulse reading.  I remember JR Worsley saying that after a little treatment an element’s yin and yang officials become strong enough to share their energy, and at no time during the many hours I spent observing him with patients do I recall him diagnosing a block of this kind within an element.  I have however myself once found a IX – X block between the Lung and the Large Intestine within the Metal element in a patient who had just had colostomy surgery. There was a very marked discrepancy between the two pulses, and I successfully cleared this block by needling IX 7, the exit point on the Lung, and X 4, the entry point on the Large Intestine.  But this was the only time in my many years of practice where I found a sufficiently noticeable block within an element. 

When trying to diagnose an Entry-Exit block, I always like to have in mind the physical area of the body where the entry and exit points are located, and, at a deeper level, look to see whether the patient is showing any emotional signs indicating some disturbance of the officials concerned.  In the case of a X - XI block, for example, the position of X 20 at the side of the nose and of XI 1 just below the eye indicates a blockage of energy running up the nose towards the eye.  It is easy to see that this may well cause, and does often cause, symptoms such as hay fever, sinusitis or conjunctivitis.  At a deeper level, this block can also be seen as a manifestation of the difficulty the Metal element’s LI official may be experiencing in letting go for some reason, and the resultant difficulty of the Earth element’s Stomach official to process what is coming to it.  This imbalance between the two linked elements may also reveal itself in changes in some of the sensory signals they show, such as a very marked change of colour or emotion.  For example, I have detected an VIII – IX (Liv – Lu) block in patients well before taking a pulse reading, because a patient who has previously been very mild and gentle suddenly turns up for treatment telling me how angry he feels with the world. 

It is important to remember, too, that Entry-Exit blocks are not related to a particular element, and can appear in people of any element.  They can therefore not be used to help us diagnose a person’s element.

Finally, I have noticed that people have what I call their “favourite” blocks, ones that recur at intervals.  Mine happens to be a II – III (SI - Bl) block, other people’s might be a XII – 1 (Sp - Ht) block or a VIII – IX  (Li - Lu) block.  These blocks recur only very infrequently, perhaps once in 6 months or a year, and are a sign of some individual weakness in the balance of the elements within us.

My next blog will be about the deepest block all, that between CV and GV (Ren Mai and Du Mai).

We should never rely too much on our pulse-taking

An Israeli practitioner, Anton, who is making every effort to deepen his understanding of five element acupuncture, has recently sent me the following interesting question:

I have a question about the husband/wife block. Today I treated a patient and found this block on her. And this is the third time in four months that I make this treatment for her. Well, maybe I am missing something, am I? Does it seem ok to you to have this block back almost every month?

 

This patient delivered a baby four months ago, and the baby has a heart problem from birth. He needs to undergo a surgery on the next week. I explain to myself that all the worry about new born baby makes the block to come back every time, but is it really so? Do you think it is possible, or maybe I need to pay attention to something else?

 

This was my reply to him:

It is very rare for blocks to come back more than once in a short time.  It is most likely that this patient’s pulses are always a little stronger on the right hand than the left hand, so that it isn’t a H/W block.  Just assume that that is what is the case, and don’t treat the block again.

I mulled over his question and my reply for a time afterwards, and realised that I should have added something important.  I myself never rely only on my pulse-taking to help me diagnose a block of any kind. As I have said on many occasions, pulse-taking is a very complex art, much more complex than I think we like to admit to ourselves.  In effect we are attempting to read the state of the five different elements and their 12 officials with what I always like to think of as the rather blunt instruments of our finger-tips.  Of course we get more adept at doing this as the years pass, but I have never forgotten the lessons I learned comparing JR Worsley’s pulse-readings with my own, even after I had been more than 3 years in practice (plus 3 years training myself to read pulses). 

He would tell me one of my patients had an Entry/Exit block or a Husband/Wife block when I simply could not feel this.  Conversely, what I rather simplistically thought to be some kind of a block would turn out not to be that.  In other words the delicate art of accurate pulse-reading was something I realised would take me many years to learn.  And in the meantime I realised, too, that I had to look for other indications in patients which should be helping me suspect the presence of a block.  In the case of a Husband/Wife block, we must never forget that this is the indication of a deep attack on the Heart, and a patient must be showing signs of some desperation, of almost wanting to give up.  They may not articulate this in words, and some may like to hide their despair, but as good five element acupuncturists we should always be looking below the surface to see what is really going on deep inside a patient.

Anton’s patient is dealing with the serious condition of her baby, but not everybody facing something like this would necessarily feel like giving up.  It may not be causing a Husband/Wife block, though it is always worth considering this, and carrying out the treatment procedure for a block even if we are not sure of the pulse picture.  Remember that it never matters if we try to clear a block of any kind, from Possession to a simple Entry/Exit block, if the block is not there.  It is then only like trying to open a door which is already open.  So it is better to err on the side of treating for a block even if we are unsure of its presence, rather than ignoring what might be a block.  On the other hand, once you have treated a block, you don’t need to repeat this treatment if you are sure you got the points the first time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The significance of a Husband/Wife imbalance

I remember asking JR Worsley how he would describe the onset of death in five element terms, and he gave me this very simple reply:  “A person dies when Aggressive Energy appears again and again, and a Husband/Wife imbalance can no longer be corrected.”

If we think through the H/W treatment procedure, his reply makes perfect sense.  It is always good to look at the five element chart when doing this, and trace the points we use to clear H/W on the chart itself.  When I teach the procedure I always draw a vertical line down the middle of the five element circle, separating the two sides in half.  When looking at the chart in front of us, and starting from the Fire element on the right side at the top, there are the two Outer Fire officials, the Three Heater and Heart Protector, the Earth element and the Metal element.  On the left side, there are the two Inner Fire officials, Small Intestine and Heart, the Wood element and the Water element.  Energy passes along the Shen cycle from Inner Fire, through Earth, Metal, Water, Wood to Outer Fire and on again in its endless circling.  The vertical line I draw to separate these two sides should be a broken not a straight line.  During life, the two sides must always be joined energetically, but when there is a H/W imbalance this connection weakens and threatens to break.  The point of complete separation represents death.

The Husband/Wife imbalance is diagnosed by a pulse reading which reflects a weakening of the cycle of energy, with the pulses on the right-hand side, which we call the Wife’s side, becoming excessively strong at the expense of those on the left, the Husband’s side.  (We need not be politically correct here.  The term is taken from an ancient Chinese view of the world.)  The following is the sequence of the points we use: III (Bl) 67, IV (Ki) 7, IV (Ki) 3, VIII (Li) 4, II (SI) 4, I (Ht) 7.  The sequence is important, because the first two points, Water tonification points, immediately act to strengthen the connection between the Metal and Water elements, in effect reinforcing the link between left and right sides.  They are followed by two energy transfers across the Ke cycle.  Energy is transferred from the excess energy of the Spleen on the right across the Ke cycle to the Water element on the left by needling IV (Ki) 3, and from the Metal element on the left to the Wood element on the right by needling VIII (Wo) 4.  The sequence is completed by the source points of the Small Intestine and Heart, further strengthening all the officials on the left side, and, significantly, finally including the Heart.

JR told me one day to clear a Husband/Wife imbalance on one of my patients. He returned to the room to check on what I was doing when I had only begun the procedure, and had just needled the Water tonification points.  He took the patient’s pulses, and told me that the block had already cleared.  I completed the procedure after he left the room, as I did not think it appropriate to leave it half-way through.  This made me understand for the first time exactly how important it was to re-establish a strong connection between Metal and Water.  It is when the flow of energy between them starts to weaken that we must be alert to the strain it is putting on the Heart which is now being deprived of the good energy it needs to function properly.  When a person is dangerously ill, it is this link between the officials which starts to weaken and eventually breaks completely at the point of death.  In five element terms, the weakened Kidney (the Water element no longer receiving energy from the Metal element) passes Aggressive Energy across the Ke cycle to the Heart.  Looked at in terms of orthodox medicine, this represents kidney failure inevitably leading to cardiac failure. 

We are not going against nature if we try to correct a H/W imbalance in a severely ill patient whenever we find it.  We are just doing all we can to strengthen the Heart and make the patient as comfortable as possible.  Eventually, the imbalance will not correct itself if the patient is too ill.  This is when death takes over. The Heart will be telling us when it has had enough of life.

I always find it comforting to find the explanation for the onset of death in such clear five element terms, and I am grateful that we have such simple and powerful means in our hands to treat a potentially life-threatening condition in its early stages. 

 

 

Another profound lesson from the master JR Worsley

A profoundly moving experience which has coloured the whole of my acupuncture life occurred when JR came to my practice for a day.  He had agreed to see six of my patients at hourly intervals.  I was therefore dismayed when he diagnosed that five of them needed what we call possession treatment.  I was shocked that I had not seen this myself beforehand, for this is a long treatment, which could easily last more than the hour I had allocated to each patient.  To help speed up treatment, JR said that he would stay the whole time in the practice room with me.

The treatment protocol requires the insertion of seven needles in a certain order, each needle having to be accurately placed so that the seven act as a combination to release this block.  We were also told that the needles should be left in for up to 20 minutes.  Locating these seven points is usually quite a lengthy business.  They are spread over the body, and since a few are particularly difficult to locate, it would normally have taken me quite a long time to find the points and insert the needles correctly, but with JR standing behind me and watching me as I worked, I relaxed completely, knowing that he would correct any misplaced location.  In the event, to my surprise I located each point without any difficulty for each of the five patients.  I heard afterwards from a fellow acupuncturist who was in the room with us that at each insertion JR simply nodded his head as if to say, “yes, that’s right”, and a mere few minutes after all the needles had been inserted, he would look at the patient and again nod his head, telling me to remove the needles.  Each treatment had barely lasted five minutes, and each case of possession had cleared.

Afterwards, thinking back on what had gone on in the practice room, I was convinced that JR was guiding my hand, such was the power of the energies he must have been directing towards my patients.  In effect I felt that he was treating my patients through me, and I did not think that it was fanciful to believe this.  It is this concentrated focus of all our attention with the aim of helping our patients, like a beam of light directed at one spot, which transforms what can become a purely physical procedure, the insertion of a needle at one point on the body, into something profoundly healing. 

I also remember JR saying that he did not really need to use moxa to warm a point, because he could do this simply by gently placing his finger over the point and the patient would feel the heat.  I thought I would see if I could do the same, and to my surprise found that the patient said “Hot!” as I palpated the point and before I had inserted a needle.  This confirmed to me that there is some transmission of energy between the practitioner and the patient which can become a powerful force if directed correctly.

To persuade myself of the truth of this in a more everyday situation, I rather mischievously decided that I would test out my theory when sitting on the top deck of a bus watching the world walk by on the pavement below.  I stared hard at the back of the head of a man passing below in the street.  To my delight, but perhaps not to my surprise, the man started to look around, gradually turning his head towards the bus, before finally raising his eyes to meet mine on the upper deck.  There was no doubt that whatever impulses I was sending out had somehow alerted him that somebody somewhere was watching, and he did not stop looking until he had homed in on me.  The same thing happened when I was sitting in the cinema and noticed a friend sitting many rows in front of me.  Again I concentrated on looking at the back of her head until I noticed her growing uncomfortable and starting to look around almost uneasily, before finally turning herself round completely in her seat and searching the back of the cinema until she had located me.

If my eye could send out such powerful signals quite a distance away, I could understand that the much closer contact with a patient, both through my eyes and through my touch, could have a correspondingly greater effect.  In my training much emphasis was placed on touch and its power to heal.  If this power is added to the action of a needle, then treatment can reach a profound level of healing in the hands of a caring practitioner.

 

 

Important milestones in my five element life

An experience in my early acupuncture life had a long-lasting effect upon me, because it brought me face to face with an area of life which until then I would probably have denied existed or would even have ridiculed.  These were very early days in my practice and I was still a very uncertain practitioner, often unsure of what I was doing.  I doubt if I had treated a Husband/Wife imbalance on my own before then, and found myself faced with diagnosing a case obvious enough from the pulse picture and my patient’s distress for me to be certain that this block was there.  At the time I had the mistaken idea, culled from I know not where, that it would be dangerous on a Metal patient, as this patient was, to do the part of the treatment which required me to transfer energy from Metal to Water (the Water tonification points) to help re-establish the smooth flow of energy from the pulses of the right hand to those of the left hand.  I felt that this would be going against the principle that we always need to strengthen the pulses of the guardian element, in this case, the Metal element.  In fact the rule is always to treat the Husband/Wife imbalance, whatever the patient’s element is, and then continue treatment with the source points of the chosen element, whichever that is.

I remember freaking out a little, wondering if I would be doing the patient harm by needling these points, so calmed myself by very slowly marking the points whilst trying to gather my thoughts.  I had forgotten that I had given my patient a copy of JR Worsley’s Talking about Acupuncture in New York in which he mentions the importance of treating this block.  As my fingers felt for the points to locate them before needling, she suddenly said, unprompted and after a few moments of silence, “That sounds like quite a dangerous thing that Husband/Wife imbalance your Professor writes about in his book.”  I remember sending up silent thanks to the good lord of acupuncture hovering over me, and with a sigh of relief, carried out the treatment and cleared the block, emboldened now by my patient’s unconscious confirmation that it needed to be done.  She never mentioned JR’s book again to me afterwards in all the many further treatments I gave her. 

I have always asked myself what had moved her to help me in this way.  And this proved to be the first of many examples of the power of the often hidden forces which can stir the elements to life through connections set up by something as apparently simple as stimulating the points as I mark them, or, as here, some unconscious request I must have been sending out for help in dealing with a difficult treatment situation.  I have found that, at other difficult times in my practice, help has surprisingly been forthcoming in odd ways, as though I somehow offer up a prayer for help to whatever powers rule the universe and summon an answer when I feel an answer is desperately needed, as in the case of this patient.

This is when the rational part of me, nurtured since childhood in the atmosphere of an agnostic family with no particular interest in spiritual matters, and with an unshakable trust in the power of orthodox medicine to heal, for the first time encountered something I could find no rational explanation for.  And yet my family had been prepared to welcome a rather odd cuckoo into their nest, an eminent astrologer whose writings I later learnt were evidence of a belief in much esoteric thought.  So perhaps there was something in the atmosphere at home that prepared the ground for my growing realisation that somehow my practice of acupuncture had the potential to tap into forces in the universe which lay beyond my experience so far.  The incident with my patient with a Husband/Wife imbalance first alerted me to this.  What had made her mention JR’s words about Husband/Wife at the very moment when I was unsure what to do?  I don’t really know the answer to this, but the feeling that my acupuncture practice stirs into life forces so far unknown to me or ignored by me has grown increasingly strong with my years of practice.

 

Not yet finding the right element does not mean that the treatment you give is wrong

I was walking along thinking about the blog I have just posted Nobody likes getting things wrong (13 July), when I realised that I needed to add something to it.  If we are treating a “wrong” element, we may assume that we are doing something wrong.  But that is not what I believe.  We should not condemn any treatment we give as being wrong provided that we follow one of the basic rules of five element practice, and that is to ensure that we are not going against nature by taking more energy away from an already depleted element, or adding energy to an element already with an excess of energy. 

Our pulse-readings should tell us what to do, for they will help us assess the relative level of energy in the different pulses.  Any treatment we then give on whatever element we choose will not only not harm, but will be beneficial, because it will help balance out the different levels of energy between the five elements.  And anything which brings greater balance is to be recommended.

To all five element acupuncturists out there reading this I would therefore say “take heart”.  You can never harm a patient if you let the pulses guide you in this way even if you are unsure which element you should be concentrating your treatment upon.  Pulses alone are unlikely to pinpoint the patient’s element for you, (but you may like to take note here of Peter Eckman’s comments on my blog on Facebook about this). Using your reading of the pulses to help balance the relative strengths of the different elements one to another can help you lose some of your worry about whether the element you have chosen to treat is the “right” one or not.

Finally, in all my years of practice, no patient of mine has ever, I repeat ever, told me that any treatment I had given them had made them feel worse, except when it has temporarily exposed an underlying block, such as Husband/Wife or Entry/Exit, which the appropriate follow-up treatment successfully clears. 

I think nature is very kind.  The elements help themselves by disliking the states of imbalance which lead one element to have too much energy and another too little.  It seems that they try everything to even out any discrepancy in energy between them, which is why the treatment using energy transfers between elements is greeted with such a huge sigh of relief by all the elements.