Chinese Medicine

This approach is one of the oldest known systems of assessment and therapy, dating back five thousand years. Using perhaps the first true holistic approach, traditional Chinese medicine practitioners address every aspect of the patient’s life, including physical, chemical, mental and emotional, spiritual, and social facets. Chinese medicine includes four main components: acupuncture, manipulation and massage, herbal and nutritional remedies, and exercise disciplines called qigong (the most popular form being tai chi).

An important focus in Chinese medicine is assessment, which relies heavily on observation of the person—especially the face, skin, and breath—and on palpation of the radial pulses on the wrist. According to Chinese theory, twelve energy channels, called meridians, contain life’s energy (called chi or qi), the reason why this approach is sometimes called meridian therapy. On each meridian, there are many different points that can be stimulated by manual pressure (acupressure), needles (acupuncture), heat (through the burning of the moxa herb, referred to as moxibustion), and in modern Chinese medicine, electricity (electroacupuncture). Chinese medicine also incorporates therapies such as herbal medicine, music and color therapy, and even psychology.

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The basic theory in Chinese medicine is that an imbalance of qi—which consists of yin and yang energy—is the cause of dysfunction, injury, and ultimately disease. The balancing of yin and yang energy is therefore the goal of the practitioner, who may use any or all of the therapeutic tools to accomplish this depending on which is most applicable to the patient’s needs based on assessment.

This balance does not stop with the individual but continues into society as a whole. The individual, as well as the surrounding society, is a delicate balance of yin and yang. Yin represents water, quiet, substance, and night; yang represents fire, noise, function, and day. The two are polar opposites and therefore one of them must be present to allow the other to exist; for instance, how can you experience joy if you do not understand sorrow? More interesting is the fact that many ancient Chinese visited their practitioners when they were well, paying the practitioner a retainer to keep them healthy. If they became ill, they stopped paying until wellness returned.