One of the basic principles of five element acupuncture is that each person has one dominant element out of the five, which shapes their life both physically, in terms of the colour of their skin, the sound of their voice, and the smell on their bodies, and emotionally, in terms of their dominant emotional response to life. I see this element as a positive force, when a person is living a balanced life, or becoming a negative force when a person starts losing that balance.
It was one day as I was sitting in the classroom at my Leamington college,in the final year of my three year’s training there, that the phrase “guardian element” popped into my mind. I realised that I regarded this element as a protective force, and that it echoed the familiar phrase “guardian angel”. I remember mentioning the term to the person teaching the class I was in, and she told me that she thought it was a lovely phrase. From that day onwards I started to use the term, firstly privately to myself, then increasingly adding it to my thoughts until it has become one of the hallmarks of my teaching. I like to think of this element as being a positive, protective force on which we concentrate the focus of our treatment. The aim of treatment is always to restore the dominant element to a state of balance.
Additionally, there is a subtext here which concerns the individual official, either the yin or the yang official which are paired together to form the element. For each of us, one of the two officials is the dominant one. In my case, Fire is my guardian element, and the Inner Fire aspect is its dominant aspect. The Small Intestine can therefore be called my guardian official. It is the protector of its companion yang official, the Heart,
It is difficult enough to diagnose the dominant element, let alone try and diagnose which of its two officials is the dominant official. This is something which I should have paid greater attention to over the many years of my practice. This is because a guardian official, either yin or yang, should demand more focused treatment than its less important companion official. Treating a particular official gives a particular emphasis to
