Fighting Fire with Fire

During my acupuncture training I remember hearing the words “fighting Fire with Fire”, and the phrase has always stuck with me.  I am now not sure what the context was, except that it had something to do with not being frightened of using moxa on patients who complain of sweating, where we might hesitate to place further stress on the Fire element by adding moxa cones to our needling.  Later on in my practice, I used what I remembered from this to see if I could  help patients who were suffering hot flushes as part of their menopausal symptoms, and found that this contributed significantly to reducing them if I added one of the most wondrous points of all, III (Bl) 38 (43).

I was reminded of this when a fellow acupuncturist got in touch with me recently, asking for my advice about how he could help his wife who was suffering from very debilitating hot flushes, which persisted almost continuously throughout the day and left her feeling exhausted.   Using the experience from my own practice, I suggested he should add III 38 to the treatment he was giving her (her element is Metal), and asked him to let me know afterwards whether this had helped. 

He phoned me the next day to say that the effect had been miraculous.  His wife's hot flushes had stopped completely immediately after needling III 38 (with 7 moxa cones) ,and he noticed that her skin looked and felt quite different.  Where previously it had been hot and clammy, and had a rather sickly colour, it felt much cooler to the touch and had regained a healthier colour, and she no longer felt cold and shivery as she had done.  I interpreted this as evidence that this point, well warmed by moxibustion, had enabled her body to take control of the fire raging inside her as the hot flushes took hold.  He completed the treatment by needling the source points of Metal.  Two days later his wife had had no further hot flushes.

Thinking through why this point should have such an effect on reducing hot flushes, I have come to the conclusion that this must be because it has a close relationship to the Fire element.  We know that each point is related to the other points lying on the same meridian, as well as to points on other meridians which have a close anatomical relationship to it.  For example, III (Bl) 37 (42), on the Outer Bladder line, lies at the same horizontal plane as the AEP (back shu point) of the Lung, Bl 13, on the Inner Bladder line, and can therefore be seen as having a particular relationship to the Metal element.   Similarly, III 38 on the Outer Bladder line, lies at the same level as the AEP of the Heart Protector (Pericardium), III (Bl) 14, on the Inner Bladder line, and therefore can be seen to relate closely to the Fire element.  At a physical level, the two Outer Fire officials, the Heart Protector and the Three Heater, are in control of the blood and the body’s temperature mechanism, both of which the appearance of hot flushes show to be under extreme stress.  Needling III 38, beautifully warmed up by adding 7 moxa cones beforehand, is therefore a way of helping bring balance back to Outer Fire.  If further treatment is needed, more moxa cones can be added.

Bl 38 is one of the few points, apart from command points, which we can use several times in succession, and to my mind is probably one of the points which form the bedrock of five element practice.  One of its qualities is that it can increase its effect simply by increasing the number of moxa cones by a factor of 7 at subsequent treatments, up to a total of 50 cones (or more symbolically, I like to think, 49 (7 x 7) cones). It has an amazing effect on patients undergoing chemo- or radiotherapy, or for those with anaemia, where it can be used at successive treatments, often only a few days apart, to help the Fire element regain control of the blood. 

Some more little pointers to the Wood element

I was with a Wood friend one day and after a few hours in her company I realised that I wanted to ask her an odd question, which was, “Do you ever have doubts?”  I wondered why this question had popped into my mind and realised it was because the hours with her had in a subtle way undermined me.  She seemed so sure of everything she said, stating everything as an established fact.  It was as if I was listening to many statements all having the effect of a pronouncement, a kind of “this is so”, and “that is so” and “that is all there is to say about it.”

I asked myself why this had thrown me as much as it obviously did, because there I was half a day later still slightly disturbed.  Mulling this over, as I always do when something happens which throws me off-balance, I realised that the strong certainty with which she talked about things had caught me on the hop by highlighting what I felt were my own uncertainties and making them look like weaknesses.

 If I look carefully at the times when I think of myself as uncertain, it is not in fact the result of weakness, rather the reverse.  It represents merely the necessary time my Inner Fire (Small Intestine) needs to weigh up possible alternatives, because I always have to allow myself to see two sides of every situation.  In contrast to Wood  I am asking myself: “It may be like this, but I must also consider whether it may on the other hand be like this.”  And then my Inner Fire carries on with its ceaseless work of sorting what it is right for the Heart to do.

The Wood element, on the other hand, has other priorities.  Wood does not have the luxury of weighing up pros and cons.  It is there to get on with things, and its decisions have to be rapid and taken in a “no turning back” kind of spirit.  Once made, these decisions have to be put into effect as soon as possible, and once it has decided what its opinion about anything is, that fixes it, if not for all time, then certainly for the immediate future.  During the time I spent with my Wood friend, I heard many statements of fact which sounded as though they were my friend’s firm opinions.  With each of her emphatic statements I could feel any confidence in my own certainties fading a little, as my Small Intestine tried to take on board what was being so firmly offered as fact.  It often felt itself swayed by these dogmatic statements because it couldn’t give itself enough time to assess whether at heart it agreed with them or not. 

This was another important lesson for me on the differences between Wood’s ability to make decision and my own, and also gave me further insights into Inner Fire’s potential weaknesses, as well as its potential strengths.  These are related to its need always to see the other side of the question and therefore to evaluate the relative merits of the arguments being presented to it.   I feel that Wood has no such hesitations.  Once having made up its mind, that is it.  And as I put it myself, it can’t afford to have doubts, because doubts will hold it back from acting, and action is above all what Wood wants.

I learned a further lesson about the Wood element from one of my Wood patients who told me, rather aggressively, that he found my presence challenging, and, being also an acupuncturist, he attributed this to my being, he thought by mistake, of the Wood element.  Although I have learnt over the years never to show that I am taken aback by personal comments from patients, I found that I reacted inside myself with quite a vehement desire to answer back sharply, and had to hold myself back from doing so.  Afterwards I found that the episode had disturbed my inner equilibrium, and I tried to work out why this was.  By dint of some careful self-examination, I realised that this patient had projected on to me his own dislike of being challenged and had in effect made me angry, often the effect Wood can have when the Wood person or I are out of balance.  I then analysed my feelings to see what they told me about anger in myself and how far my reaction had been unbalanced, before finally using what I learned from this as a way of understanding not only the Wood element better, but other elements within me, such as Water (my fear of the anger) and Fire (my own element’s reaction to stress).  An interaction of just a few minutes therefore became through this a valuable lesson about the part of me which reacted to the Wood element, as well as about Wood and other elements in general.

Sometimes I come across very appropriate quotations about the elements in books that I read which I like to collect.  Here is one about the Wood element in a book by Helen Dunmore called The Spell in Winter

“I was bad at anger;  I’d always been bad at anger.  There was something pitiful in Miss Gallagher which muddled me.”

I, too, have always been "bad at anger".  That doesn't mean that I don't get angry.  I certainly do.  But my anger leaves a strong aftertaste in me which it takes me a long time to get rid of.  It is as though I am ashamed of feeling this emotion.  The "something pitiful" which the protagonist in this book feels is something which resonates with me, because I also tend to find quite legitimate excuses for the behaviour in people that has provoked my anger.

Thus do I learn a little more each day about myself, about my Inner Fire and about my relationship to the Wood element.

Finally, here is a lovely illustration of Wood’s sensitivity to the effects of acupuncture treatment.  It would help us in corroborating some of the principles according to which we work if patients were able to report precise effects when feeding back on the outcome of any particular treatment, but it is rare for patients’ assessment of improvement (or otherwise) to be so precise as to enable us to relate this to any particular treatment rather than to a combination of treatments.  To encourage us, however, it does, occasionally happen that a patient may say something like, “whatever you did last time made me feel marvellous (made my backache better, helped me cope better)”.

On rare occasions, feedback can be even more specific.   I treasure still, like some beacon in this particular wilderness, the memory of a Wood patient who, when I needled Gall Bladder 40, described immediately in perfect detail the pathway of part of the Gall Bladder meridian.  He traced the movement of energy down to the toe and back up along the outer leg, where with great accuracy he showed me the odd lateral dip the Gall Bladder is said to take at mid-calf, and then continued to draw a path up over his knee to his abdomen, finally arriving at his head, where he said, “I seem to feel something up here at the side of my eye.”  I have had other Wood patients describe the line of some movement of energy along a Gall Bladder pathway in this way, but none so precisely as this.  It may well be that Wood, the element which structures us, can feel the structure of its own shape reasserting itself as more energy, like sap in a plant, courses through its pathways as a result of treatment.   I have not had such detailed descriptions of the passage of energy from patients of other elements.                                                                                                                    

A reminder to myself about treating Metal and Earth patients

This week a practitioner asked my help with a patient of his, whom I diagnosed as Metal.  I thought she was more likely to be the Lung official (not able to take in) rather than the Large Intestine (not able to let go).   As usual, seeing this patient added something to my thoughts about the elements.

After I left the practice room I realised that I was in danger of forgetting something JR Worsley told us about treating Metal patients, and which I had not pointed out at the time to the practitioner.  This is something which also applies to treating Earth patients.  He told us that we need to be aware that, for different reasons, both elements might find the start of treatment difficult.  Both might find that the first few treatments could have the somewhat disturbing effect of making them feel rather empty.  I see this as confirming that these first treatments have such a profound effect by addressing the element so directly that they often strip away some of the defences we put up to cope with life.  Metal may therefore experience, perhaps for the first time, a profound emptiness of the spirit, that spiritual disconnection which is the burden Metal has to bear when it is out of balance.  Earth, by contrast, may experience a more physically-based emptiness, that of not being nourished, literally the gnawing feeling we have when we are hungry.

We should therefore always warn our Metal and Earth patients that this might happen, reassuring them it this is a good sign that treatment is clearing things away, so that their energy can be replenished with the good things of life.  After all, that is why we often add that prime clearer-away-of-rubbish, the point IX (Lu) 8, Meridian Gutter, to the normal command point treatment at the very early stages of Metal treatment.  And similarly with Earth, we may add XII (Sp) 8, Earth Motivator, or XI (St) 24, Lubrication Food Gate, early on.  In their different ways, these points all have the effect of helping the element we are directing our attention at to reveal its true needs.

I felt that this Metal patient had so profound an emptiness of spirit that after the initial Metal treatments with which we should always start treatment (see my Handbook of Five Element Practice here for advice on what these points are), I felt she might need more to replenish her.  The obvious point which comes to mind here is IV (Ki) 24, Spirit Burial Ground, but I also felt that she might benefit from another point one or two treatments later, a point which JR Worsley told us is “like IV 24, only deeper”, and that is III (Bl) 42, Spiritual Soul Gate.  And somewhere I feel the lovely point, I (Ht) 1, Utmost Source, beckoning at some time in the future.  JR told us that this was the supreme connecting point, re-establishing a direct connection between Heaven and Man (and Woman of course).  It can be used for patients of any element, and what better point for a Metal patient who, in my eyes, so obviously has lost a sense of this connection.

 

The effect of needling Large Intestine 7 Warm Current on two Metal patients

I like to share interesting feedback from the practice of other five element practitioners, so below I pass on what I have just received in an email from Pierre Bulteau, who lives in Rennes in Brittany.  It is with his permission that I include this in a blog. 

Pierre is one of those brave people who have dared to take the courageous step to engage wholeheartedly in treating his patients using five element acupuncture, although trained in a different discipline.  He has had to do all his learning quite on his own, except for coming regularly to SOFEA’s seminars, because there are no other five element acupuncturists in his area.  I very much admire his tenacity and dedication in making this decision.  It’s never easy changing your approach to practice, particularly when there is nobody around to help you when you start doubting what you are doing.

I say that it requires courage to be a five element practitioner because we have no textbook to refer to and no fixed criteria we can call upon to define an element.  Who can describe, in words, the green colour on a person’s face or the sound of laughter which distinguishes Fire’s outburst of joy from the nervous expression of Water? Because we have to rely on our purely subjective skills, we have to learn to cope very much on our own with the inevitable highs and lows our practice demands of us.

So here is what Pierre emailed me in his own words:

“Today I would like to give you a feedback about the use of a point.  I had read in your handbook that you like using the point X7 to bring some heat to a Metal patient. In the last month I had the occasion to use it on two Metal patients.

The first one, despite the good treatment I give him since 4 months, still had cold feet all the time. After using Warm Current X7, his feet are normally hot now without collapse.

The second one is a Metal patient I have treated during 2 years. Until now, his health was good and the last year I just saw him at the season change. But on Monday when he visit me for the preparation of the spring he explained me a constant feeling of cold in the lumbar with chills since Christmas. I used again X7 with success because today he sent me a SMS to say that the symptom has disappeared.

It's wonderful to discover another way to use the points through an element and his channels.

Before, because of their weak kidney pulse I would have reinforced the kidney Yang. Now with five element acupuncture I stay on an element and I look for a point which can help this person belonging to a specific element.

What a wonderful system of healing!”

Aware that other branches of acupuncture locate X 7 at 5 ACI (cun) rather than the 7 ACI that we do, I asked him where he had needled the point.  This turned out to be at 5 ACI, which again raised the question in his mind, and in mine, about a practitioner’s intention when needling.  He then sent me a very interesting reply with his thoughts on this, which concludes with the following beautiful thought:

“So, as a quantum physicist that I am before being an acupuncturist, I really think that our faith coming from our heart is the key to allow a treatment to succeed. Indeed, consciousness has a direct action on the Qi.
No matter where you choose to locate a point, what really matters is to believe it with all your heart."
 
This has set me thinking again about what I always describe as the tricky topic of a practitioner’s intention, to be discussed further in another blog when I have thought this through in more detail.

I would like to thank Pierre for constantly stimulating my ideas with his often challenging questions in the many emails he sends me asking for help with his five element practice.  You certainly keep me on my toes, Pierre!

  
 
 
 

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.

Publication of the second book of my blogs

I have just signed an agreement with Singing Dragon Press to publish a second book of my blogs, following on from my first book On Being a Five Element Acupuncturist.  The new book covers my blogs from January 2014 to the present.  We are calling it Blogging a Five Element Life.

 

I hope it will be published by the time of the BAcC Annual Conference in September, where I will be giving a talk on Saturday 23 September on the challenges and rewards of introducing Chinese acupuncturists to the practice of five element acupuncture.

 

I am also adding a note here to help those who come to our seminars and want to learn more about a five element approach to treatment.   At our seminars many questions are always asked about point selection.  I realise that some of you may not know that I revised and updated the second edition of my Handbook of Five Element Practice to include what I consider to be a more comprehensive discussion of the way in which we use point selection in five element acupuncture.  In particular, I added a surprisingly short list of the points I like to use.  It would be helpful for anybody trying to understand the principles behind five element point selection to familiarize themselves with the relevant chapters in this new edition of the Handbook (to be obtained from Singing Dragon Press).

 

At each seminar I also always emphasize my beloved mantra: “Think elements not points”, to help those who find difficulty in understanding the five element approach to point selection.

 

I hope everybody will have a good Easter break, and that spring will bring with it a bit more of Wood’s optimism.  

 

For simplicity’s sake – another heartfelt plea

Anybody who knows anything about me will know how often I plead for one basic principle of five element acupuncture, which is to keep it simple.  I always hear JR Worsley’s voice in my ear telling us that we really only need 3 minutes with our patients, one to look at them, two to decide on the point(s) to needle and three to say goodbye.  It was said jokingly (or at least I assumed it was), but like everything he said it hides profound wisdom.  The longer I practise, the more I have come to understand this.

As all good five element acupuncturists know, the aim of treatment is to hand control back to the elements within the patient as quickly as possible.  All treatment represents an interference with a patient’s natural energy, a temporary taking-over of control.  We were always told that it is not we who heal our patients, it is nature which does this through the elements which create the world outside and create our bodies and within them our souls.  So if we can find out where a hitch has occurred in the beautiful, health-giving flow of energy round the cycle of the elements, and help reinstate this natural flow, our work is done and we should withdraw from the scene.

From this viewpoint it can then be regarded as a waste of energy to spend so much time mulling over the actions of individual points rather than trying to pinpoint the element under stress and choosing points relating to that element. Sadly, though, I see too many people doing this.  We can call this “not seeing the wood for the trees”.

There is no doubt that it requires much humility to accept that observing the work of the elements in a human being demands skills which we can only acquire over time and involves much hard work.  For example, I like to tell people that it took me many years accurately to recognize the fear at the heart of the Water element, or that flushed red cheeks did not, as I assumed, point to Fire, but either to Wood or Earth out of control.  (In the case of Wood, it is because it is depriving its child Fire of the warmth it needs, and therefore Fire tries to stoke it up artificially, or in the case of Earth, it is because its mother, Fire, is out of control and passes on too much Fire to its child.  Fire never has permanently flushed skin.  Its colour flushes and then fades again quite quickly.  It often has a kind of blotchy red look.)  It took me a long time and much evidence from treating patients to recognize this and to accept that this was so.

But once we realize that what we need to do is study people as closely as possible wherever we encounter them (TV or cafes are good places to observe the significant interactions which point to one element or another), and gradually to build up a personal filing system of indicators for each element, then practice becomes simpler and simpler.  The mantra, as always, is “find the element and the points look after themselves”.  I don’t think it matters at all if I choose one point and another practitioner chooses another, provided both strengthen the patient’s guardian element.

Treatment of alopecia - another satisfactory use of a CV/GV block

A fellow practitioner, Jo Banthorpe, invited me to her practice for a day in mid-May to help with the treatment of some of her patients.  Before I arrived she warned me that she looked somewhat different from when we had last seen each other because she had developed alopecia, and now had large bare patches on her head.  She had therefore shaved her hair close to the skull to make these patches less noticeable.  I have Jo's permission to write about this.

During the day with her I asked her whether she had had treatment for a CV/GV (Ren Mai/DuMai) block, or had even considered this as being the cause of the alopecia.  I told her that over the years I had successfully treated several patients with alopecia, each having been told that there was little Western medicine could do to restore hair growth.  In each case clearing a CV/GV block led within a few weeks to the gradual re-growth of the hair.  I had been encouraged to select this treatment because I felt that such a drastic depletion of energy causing severe hair loss of this kind could only be the result of some serious energy block.  This obviously pointed to a CV/GV block.

I cleared this blockage on Jo during my day with her and awaited the result.  You can imagine how happy I was a few days ago to receive an email from her telling me that she was “delighted to report that my hair seems to be growing back! ” And “I don't think it was growing back before we did CV/GV, in fact I think I was still losing it but more from the hair line at the sides.”   She enclosed some photos of the back and side of her head, clearly showing the re-growth of hair.

This is yet another example of the drastic improvement in all kinds of conditions that clearing a CV/GV block can lead to.  It isn’t always at all clear from our often inadequate pulse readings that there is sufficiently severe depletion of energy to point immediately to a CV/GV block.  But if in doubt, and there is a persistent deep-seated condition which your treatment cannot seem to shift, then always think of this block. 

I remember quite clearly JR Worsley telling us that if the points for clearing a CV/GV block were on the wrist we would do it on every patient!  Those words have stayed with me for 30 years, and encouraged me to think often of this block and clear it, perhaps receiving confirmation only afterwards, when the patient’s symptoms change dramatically, that there was indeed such a block there.  So all of you out there who hesitate to diagnose this block because you are uncertain of your pulse-taking or feel reluctant to needle some of these points, just do this treatment. The block is surprisingly often there, and if it isn’t, it never hurts to do it.  It’s only like opening a door which is already open.

 

The power of releasing blocked energy

I love clearing what we call energy blocks, a technique which really forms the bedrock of five element practice.  All illness can be described as being caused by different forms of blocked energy, being the result of some impairment of the balanced flow of energy from element to element round the five element circle.  The most common form of block, and one we address at a patient’s first treatment, is that which leads to the presence of Aggressive Energy, an AE block, where one element in distress passes its disturbed energy on along the cycle, not to its child element but to its grandchild, throwing it across the circle “like some hot potato”, we were told.

It always amazes me how many physical complaints can disappear simply by expelling this negative energy from body and soul, and how often it will occur as a result of some mental or physical trauma.   Any form of surgery, for example, life-saving though it may sometimes be, must always be viewed as traumatic for the body (and soul), and therefore benefits from checking for the presence of AE afterwards.  It may well be there, and will hinder recovery if left to fester for too long.  In a fairly healthy person I assume that AE will gradually seep from the body without treatment, otherwise nobody would recover from surgery or other traumas, which of course they do, but recovery will be speeded up if this simple treatment is done as a matter of course.

Then of course there are all the frequent day-to-day blocks we encounter, which we call Entry/Exit blocks, blocks which occur at the exit point of one meridian and the entry point of another.  These lead to localized areas of pain and discomfort, which can speedily be dispelled by the needling of just a few points.    Finally, there is the most powerful Entry/Exit block of all, that between Conception Vessel and Governor Vessel, a CV/GV (Ren Mai/Du Mai) block. 

I remember JR Worsley telling us that we would do the points for a CV/GV block on every patient if only they were on the hand.  I recall laughing at the time, but I have since realised how true this would be because of the wondrous power this releases at the deepest level.  I suspect many of us choose not to detect this block from a natural reluctance to needle what is the most intimate part of a person’s body.  To help our students at SOFEA overcome their inhibitions, we always made sure that they had marked up these points on both men and women as part of their training.  (And here I will pass on a tip I have learnt from Chinese acupuncturists, who are much less reluctant to needle these points than the more inhibited English.  Turn a patient on their side with their knees bent, rather than, as we were taught, needling the points with the patient lying on their back, a more vulnerable position, certainly for women.)

A patient on whom I have just needled a CV/GV block told me that she felt very different immediately after the treatment.  “I feel more centred, more grounded, more upright.”

See also my Handbook of Five Element Practice for more on all kinds of blocks.