22 - 22 Treating one person is treating the whole family

One of the pleasures of my contacts with China during Covid lockdowns has been my discovery of all the different online methods of communication which have sprung up in great numbers.  I am almost overwhelmed by the information pouring towards me across the internet on any subject under the sun.  I, too, have added to this stream of information winging its way through the ether across oceans and continents, and one of the channels of communication which I had the idea to set up is what I call my "Five Element Thought for the Day".

 

This is a pale imitation of the BBC's Thought for the Day, because I don't write it every day, far from it, but I try to encapsulate something I have been thinking about in as few words as possible to set Chinese five element acupuncturists thinking.  So here is today's thought, my 26th:

 

"To treat one person is to treat the whole family

 

When we treat one person in the family with five element acupuncture we are treating the whole family.

 

We hope our treatment will make our patient feel happier and more balanced.  And when they see life in a more balanced way, they will be more likely to be kinder to their family and friends, and more tolerant of any differences."

 

I have just sent this over to China for inclusion in one of the many five element websites and chatrooms that have grown up over there.  

 

This thought has prompted me to write a longer piece for this blog, because it describes one of the heartening effects of good five element practice, which is perhaps not sufficiently understood and therefore often underrated.

 

Often patients would come to me concerned about some profound problems in their relationships with their family or friends, and what I have noticed is that, as treatment gradually started to bring their lives to a greater degree of balance, the problems which so dominated their lives when they first came to see me seemed to recede in importance, if not disappear altogether.  Once I became aware of this, I would enquire how things were now between my patients and those around them, and would find that often patients were themselves surprised to register how much things had improved, sometimes to the point of almost denying that the problems had originally been so bad.

 

I learnt to interpret this change as being the result of good treatment which helped bring a patient's guardian element to a better state of balance so that the demands they place upon others through their own imbalances were corresponding less.  This in turn helps explain the improvement in their family relationships.  I learnt to tell patients early on that this might be one of the benefits of treatment, so that concentrating upon restoring themselves to health was the most unselfish thing for them to do because they were in effect indirectly treating their whole family.

 

I remember quite clearly the day that I became aware of this in relation to my own family. I realised that my treatment had somehow helped the elements within me understand why I was having so much trouble relating to a family member.  The more my treatment helped me understand my own needs better, the less I seemed to demand of my relationships with others, particularly of course my family, and the more I was able to accept others as they were, rather than demand that they change their behaviour to adapt to my needs.

 

Treating one person is a way of treating a whole family.  And nothing in all my years of practice has made me see things differently.