The ancient arts of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine are based on the notion that a person’s place in the universe is between Heaven and Earth. The Chinese symbol for a human is rather like a person standing with feet planted firmly on the ground while reaching both arms to heaven to embrace and draw the universe and its many aspects into him or herself. This image typifies the goals of Chinese medicine in so many ways – the notion that we are part of a greater whole, and that there is a dynamic balance between heaven and earth, above and below, masculine and feminine, inside and without, yin and yang. It is this sense of balance that is the goal of acupuncture where illness, pain and bodily dysfunction are seen as a disruption of the whole. In the West a physician evaluates a patient to identify usually one single entity upon which he or she brings to bear his powers of influence to bring about change and hopefully healing of a presenting problem. The Chinese physician, however, not only sees the presenting complaint of the back ache, low libido loss of hair color in an aging man who also sees the underlying process of imbalance rippling through all the organs and energies of the body. He addresses the back pain but attends to the underlying kidney, liver and spleen deficiencies that are quite visible to him from his perspective. He intervenes to support the restoration of the energy (qi) to the body, removes the blocks of stagnation that cause pain and nourishes the proper harmony of communications between the organs of the body. Chi The idea of qi (“chi”) is that of the universal energy that runs everything from our car engine to the Sun to the beat of the heart. It is the force that we draw in with a breath and intake with food. The body takes this qi and transforms it into the form needed to maintain the balance of the body’s systems and is transported through a complex web of channels, meridians, and subchannels. A simple example demonstrates how one might understand this extraordinary web in our bodies that we can’t see or easily measure with conventional means: If I throw several rocks into a pond they all make waves that run into each other and, depending on many variables, they can partially or completely cancel each other or come together to make larger waves which, if the splashing is continuous, become standing waves. At certain places where those standing waves cross each other and establish dynamic balance we have nodes. Taking this imaging and applying it to the body while knowing that every cell of the body generates an electromagnetic wave continuously, we can easily see that such waves could form standing waves and nodes across the surface of the body. Those standing waves correspond to the energy meridians and the nodes are where the acupuncture points are placed. This is where the work of acupuncture is done. How It Works An acupuncture treatment is done for a wide array of things from pain to depression and anxiety as a presenting symptom. The initial evaluation involves a discussion of the patient’s specific concerns and complaints, signs and symptoms as well as general information about the person’s life and habits, life history and health history. Then the practitioner reads the 12 pulses of the wrists and examines the tongue to learn the qualities of the corresponding organs and their inbalances and problems. The actual treatment could be to open a block, build up a reserve or improve communication between different parts of the body with the aim of promoting balance. The final consequence is not only the improvement or resolution of the presenting symptoms but the improvement of the broader and deeper health of the patient, as well. Treatments generally last an hour and occur weekly for a few to several weeks. However, the particular treatment plan depends how the situation unfolds as the therapy moves forward. Return to Services