Chinese Medicine

How does TCM work?

Chinese medicine is over 5000 years old. Back then people lived very much connected with nature and very much in its rhythm.

There was no electricity which means one wakes up with sunrise, works mainly outside and then goes home with sunset. No artificial light, no air-condition. One lives with nature as it is. People ate what grew in their immediate neighbourhood and only what was growing in that season. There were no chemicals and artificial preservations in the food. Rhythm was slower, correlated with the earth.

Under these terms it was easier for those who went into deeper practice to be able to see the flow of energy and connectivity between the man, the earth below and the sky above. The influences of the material aspect of life – EARTH and the more amorphous, spiritual aspect of life – HEAVEN on the human BODY could very clearly be seen by the healers and doctors.

First the channels could be seen. Channels of energy connected to body organs and affect them directly. These channels would later be known as the Meridians. On these channels then the acupunkture points could be seen.

Then it would become clear how one can activate and manipulate these points in different ways and techniques to have them give a certain effect on the body. For example pain is considered a stagnation of QI, meaning a block in the free energy flow in this channel. To resolve pain one has to open this block and allow the free flow of energy to be back. When this is not done, pain will become stronger because when energy is blocked over a long period of time it makes also blood get stuck. When blood is stuck pain becomes much stronger and sharper.

The next step after resolving the acute pain is to treat the root of what makes energy be blocked in that channel. It can be that the organ which is related to this channel is disturbed or weak or maybe there is another organ which is out of balance.

How does chinese medicine work

The focus is on the person, not the symptoms

Chinese medicine is a multi-level thinking medicine and as such is very challenging to the linear western way of thinking.

In Chinese medicine we have a verity of models which we can use when coming to create a treatment.

These models are not meant to be used separately but combined together. This is even more challenging to the western mind. Here we have to master a great depth of understating these different models and know how to combine them when coming to treat a person.

Understanding the complex of circumstances which brought this specific person to experience this specific pathology, is the crucial point for treatment success and the greatest challenge to the therapist.

Thus the treatment of one person’s back pain can be entirely different from the treatment of another’s person back pain.

This is personal medicine, we do not treat symptoms but we treat the person who holds these symptoms.

Conceptual models in TCM

Chinese medicine models are fascinating and have a very unique way of evolution. They start with the One DAO. In which all is being contained and which is eternally unchanging and at the same time changing constantly.

Then we have the 2 model, the YIN and YANG. It represents the life duality and literally mean the dark side of the hill and the light side of the hill, respectively. It refers to all of lifes dualities such as: womanman, nightday, wintersummer, stillnessmovement, condensed materialgas and air etc.

The 3 model is the HEAVEN, MAN, EARTH model. This model watches the influences of the HEAVEN or the spiritsoul on the MAN and the influences of the earth meaning the material aspects on the MAN. Material aspects such as the body itself with its constitution, the nutrition one eats and the environment one lives in, for example.

The 4 model talks about the 4 levels of energy and materials in the body:
- Wei Qi or Defensive Level
- Qi Level
- Ying or Nutritive Level
- Xue or Blood Level
We then can diagnose in which level is the pathology and treat the person accordingly.

The 5 model is the 5 phases or better known as the 5 elements.
Water, Wood, Fire, Earth and Metal. These 5 phases have different levels of effect and relations to each other and can very easily bring health when they are balanced or sickness when they are in imbalance.

The 6 systems model is another way to relate to all organs and channels and another way they relate to each other and thus another way they can bring each other out of balance and so to sickness.

The 7 emotions model is very interesting as it shows how ancient Chinese could recognise how feelings and emotions can bring us to imbalance and thus be an inner cause for sickness. Great sadness and grief, great anger and frustration, great fear, exaggerated worry and even over joy are all emotions that can bring our organism out of balance and thus into sickness.

The Chinese therapist has thus a great challenge to work simultaneously with these models to find the correct diagnose for that specific person’s pathology and then choose the model which will be of best to use in this case to treat and heal.

This emphasizes the importance of studying Chinese medicine in depth and length. TCM is not just learning where the points are and how to stick the needles, which unfortunately happens very often by people who study it very superficially.

Ancient wisdom –
is most valuable

As mentioned above Chinese medicine is of extreme depth and is fascinating.

What is also interesting about it is that a therapist is considered better when he is closer in his approach, understanding and techniques to the ancient ancestors of this medicine.

This is opposite to western medicine which is a lifesaving medicine but is a very young medicine and when a doctor thinks of how a certain pathology was treated 20 years ago he feels it’s good we are no longer in that place because it was so undeveloped.

Integrative Medicine

Integrative –
Medicine

The term of INTEGRATIVE MEDICINE means the cooperation between TCM and western medicine. For the success of a treatment of numerous pathologies we would not see a complete healing or a significant improvement if it would be treated only by one of the two.

Western medicine has amazing tools for diagnosis and treatment. However time and time again we meet certain conditions\pathologies where western medicine doesn't have a good way to treat the root of the problem, and can only give a slight relief of symptoms. In such cases the treatment with TCM might make a difference.

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