Helpful hints for the novice five element acupuncturist: 2 Curiosity

One of the most essential qualities a five element acupuncturist should aim to develop is the gift of curiosity.  If we want to help other people, we have to be curious about what is going on inside them and what makes them tick.  This also means that we have to be just as interested in what goes on inside us, too, so that we are able to relate their experiences to our own.  With every therapy there is a risk that the therapist will, often quite unconsciously, stand apart from their patient, viewing them as though through a glass screen.  This can create a kind of "them and us" divide which ignores one of the simplest, most profound truths underlying all human interactions.  It is that we all, therapists and patients alike, form part of a common humanity,

 We must therefore use what we have learnt about ourselves to help us understand our patients.  We, too, are formed of the interaction of the five elements, amongst which we have one dominant element which imprints us with its signature.  We, too, show, in balance, this dominant element's strengths, and in times of imbalance, its weaknesses.  But being therapists, whose task is to help patients representing all the elements, we have to learn to adapt ourselves to the needs of elements apart from our own, and that requires much insight.  We must learn to accept that everything our patients may be experiencing is to some extent also something that is familiar to us from our own life experiences.