Helpful hints for the novice five element practitioner: 1 Learning to be alone with a patient

There is nothing more daunting than to find ourselves alone in the practice room with our first patient, just the two of us.  There are no reference books we can take with us into the room to remind us of what we need to do; all we have is ourselves and the experience we have gained during our training.  Nor, unlike Western-trained doctors, do we have any physical information to help us make a preliminary diagnosis, such as blood or other clinical tests.  We just have ourselves, and our senses of seeing, hearing, smelling and, above all, feeling to guide us.

 What novice practitioners often forget, however, is that we should not think that it is diagnosing the element which is the main purpose of our initial interactions with our patients.  Instead, we should first concentrate on establishing a warm and caring relationship with them.  The more at ease a patient feels, the more comfortable they will be in telling us what is really going on in their lives, and this in turn will allow their guardian element to reveal itself more clearly.  And the more relaxed we feel with our patient, the more we give ourselves time to explore the feelings our patient evokes in us, and the sensory impressions we are receiving from them.  All this will gradually point us in the direction of the right element.

 

I would therefore advise each novice five element practitioner to worry less about trying to diagnose the patient's element, and concentrate instead on making sure that their approach is making their patients feel safe and at ease.  It is by doing this that their element will also reveal itself more clearly.