22 - 38 Some of the challenges facing novice five element acupuncturists

One of the great difficulties of being a five element acupuncturist is that all we really have to rely on is ourselves;  we can't diagnose our patients' elements by looking at a textbook.  The only way is to look deep within ourselves and ask our senses to give us pointers to the different elements.  Can we see a white colour on our patient's skin, hear a harsh note in our patient's voice or feel ourselves drawn to one patient and pushed away by another?  It is these sensory signs which, when interpreted appropriately, will turn us towards one element or another.

 

But we do need the help of more experienced practitioners to develop the skills necessary to differentiate one kind of colour from another or interpret one patient's reactions to us from that of another patient.  This is where those who live far from other five element practitioners would seem to have problems, for it will be rare for them to have the kind of feedback those lucky enough to learn from their tutors in five element colleges can benefit from.

 

So what do this ever-growing band of five element acupuncturists living far from such help do?  And this is particularly true for all those hundreds of Chinese five element acupuncturists.  Each has to have the courage to use their own practice as a way of gaining experience.  In some sense they can consider themselves still to be pioneers in the field of five element acupuncture, and rather than being frightened by this, revel in this fact, as I did.  Even though I was fortunate enough to do my training in a five element college, I started my practice in London very much on my own, because there were few other five element acupuncturists close by whom I could consult if I had doubts about what I was doing.  I remember feeling very much alone, particularly as we were only allowed to apply to join our college's postgraduate programme after we had completed two full years of practice.  

 

Looking back I realise now that what helped me the most was my own belief in what I was doing, and also JR Worsley's insistence that, provided we followed the basic five element rules, we could all help our patients, even in the earliest days of our practice.  I learnt that it was important not to be too hard on myself, not to ask too much of myself, and avoid the trap of thinking that it was essential to diagnose my patients' elements quickly.  I took to heart what JR Worsley had told us, which was that he had had more than 40 years of practice to get to the stage he was at, and we were only starting on this path.  Once I had accepted how difficult it is to diagnose the elements correctly, and how many years of experience are required to develop the necessary diagnostic skills, I stopped asking too much of myself, and allowed myself to relax.  And a relaxed practitioner is much more likely to interpret the sensory signs accurately than one who is tense and anxious.

 

Another important lesson I learnt is that nothing I could do would harm my patient, provided I didn't needle points too deeply, drain energy from already depleted officials or add more energy to officials already with excess energy.  No patient will object to having treatment directed at an element which is not their guardian element.  All the elements circulate within us, and all will welcome some attention.  They will just not be quite as receptive to the energy boosting a treatment gives them as when treatment is focused on the guardian element.

  

22 - 37 Proof that the skin is our third lung

It is sometimes very comforting to get proof that the ancient Chinese in their wisdom knew what they were talking about.  And this proof arrived for me in the shape of a neighbour, who on a hot summer's day, was wearing shorts so that I could not fail to notice the patches of psoriasis on his knees.  "Yes, he said, "I've got them all over my body.  The worst ones are around my waist, and I can't seem to get rid of them whatever I do."  So of course I had to tell him about how I had helped quite a few patients suffering from psoriasis with the help of a moxa stick.

 

I gave him one, showed him how to use it and how to extinguish it, recommending that he should hold it over just the worst of the affected patches of skin, and one he could easily reach, for at least five minutes at a time, and as often a day as he had patience to do it.  Each time he should make sure that the skin around it had become properly warmed up and red, as evidence that heat was reaching the layer of dead skin which psoriasis leaves.  I told him that healing one area of skin also leads to healing of the skin over the whole body, and in this context I also happened to mention to him that in Chinese medicine the skin is called the third lung.  We do, after all, breathe through every pore in our body.

 

I checked back with him after a few days, and already he could see an improvement, not only in the patch over which he had held the moxa stick, but also, to his surprise, over his skin as a whole.  A few weeks later, he proudly showed me the healed skin at his knees, and told me that the patches over other areas of the body had improved remarkably.  And then he added, "And you know that you told me that the skin is regarded as being the third lung.  Well, I could hardly believe it, but ever since I've started with the moxa stick, I have felt my lungs breathe more easily and I now feel incredibly well, as though something inside me has changed.  I've always had breathing problems in the past, but I seem to breathe much more easily now.  I'm telling everybody about your magic stick."  I gave my neighbour no acupuncture treatment so it must have been his skin's response to the moxa stick which also treated his lungs.

 

And that reminded me that many years ago I used to go on long walking holidays where blistered feet were not uncommon.  Once people had seen how quickly even the most serious weeping blisters would heal, often overnight, after I had used my moxa stick on them, they would call me Nora and her Magic Stick.

 

Moxa sticks should be in everybody's first aid cabinet, because they have so many uses, particularly in drawing out infections such as boils, and for the quick healing of cuts.  

22 - 36 The fear of not diagnosing the "right" element

A wise young man told me something very important.  He said, "We grow when we are challenged", and I often think that there is no greater challenge for a five element acupuncturist, amongst the many challenges we face, than that of learning how to deal with the natural fear we all have of not getting our diagnosis of a patient's element "right".  We each have to learn to deal with this particular fear in our own way, but what it requires of us is honesty and humility, which can be characteristics some of us may find difficult to accept as forming a necessary part of a five element acupuncturist's role.  I have observed many reactions to my students' finding that the element that they think is "obviously" Fire turns out instead to be Wood or Metal.  Their reaction is sometimes disbelief, or a need to cast doubt on even the most experienced practitioner's diagnosis rather than accept that their practice requires so much of them. In extreme cases, students or practitioners have felt compelled to move away from five element acupuncture to practising other forms of acupuncture which do not rely so heavily on our subjective senses and emotional antennae to diagnose our patients.

I have said many times that five element practitioners have to learn to accept that they are themselves, as JR Worsley so beautifully put it, instruments of nature.  Rather than relying on physical equipment to give us our diagnostic information we have to rely on ourselves, on our eyes, ears, noses and emotional antennae.  I have always found this a quite lovely aspect of my work, but some people are daunted by the need to put themselves at the forefront of practice in this way.  No physical instrument can diagnose a patient's element;  only our own senses and feelings can do that.

 

And we are all fallible human beings, each with our own particular emotional hang-ups, each of us hoping against hope that we will get that most difficult aspect of any five element practice, the accurate diagnosis of our patient's element, right.  But we must learn to say to ourselves that, if we don't get it right to start with, it does not matter, because elements are elusive things, which often hide themselves behind other elements, having learnt that life often forces them to put on masks in order to survive.

 

We have to accept that a five element practice requires us to come to terms with not getting our diagnosis right immediately, and that once we acknowledge that this is so, we will, as my young friend said, grow as a result of meeting this challenge.