The
more I try to teach people about the elements, the more I realize that over the
years I have worked out my own personal, possibly rather idiosyncratic ways of
interpreting the signals a patient’s elements are sending me, and using these
as clear pointers to a particular element.
I imagine that all experienced five element acupuncturists must do the
same. And none of these pointers will be
exactly those of other practitioners, because everything we do and experience
is filtered not only through a filter which our guardian element places around
us, but a filter with a unique focus reflecting our own unique nature. Some of the impressions we receive from a
patient may have some similarity with those others will experience, but we will
each put our own interpretation upon them.
This
is why as practitioners we should do all that we can to find out what our own element
is, recognize its qualities, make allowances for its weaknesses, and take all
these factors into account when dealing with our patients. This is not an easy task, because we all have
a tendency to think that the fault in some uneasy relationships with our
patients lies in them not in us. It is
good to remind ourselves at intervals that this is not so. Often it is the balance of the elements
within us, particularly that of our guardian element, which is shaping our
relationship to our patient, and perhaps distorting it in some way we are
failing to recognize.
I
was doing some cooking a few days ago, and poured the cooked spaghetti through
a sieve to drain it. As I was doing
this, the thought came to me that each element, like my spaghetti, needs a
filter through which life is sieved. I
only have one kitchen sieve, but each element has its own, with its own
particular mesh allowing only certain things through.
When
our energies become unbalanced, some of these meshes become blocked and can no
longer filter what they should. Viewed in this way, treatment for the energy
blocks with which any five element practitioner is familiar, such as those for
a Husband/Wife imbalance or Entry/Exit blocks, can be seen as shaking the sieve
in different ways to allow it to filter what has been blocking it.
I
think the concept of the elements as sieves with different-sized meshes is a
further rather neat illustration to help me understand what I do.
In our attempt to pin down some of the characteristics of the five elements to help us with our diagnostic skills, there is always a danger that we apply the very broad definitions we have learnt for each element in too rigid a way. General descriptions, such as that Fire’s emotion is joy, or Earth’s colour is yellow, are all well and good as starting points to help us understand the differences between the elements, but we have to be careful not to regard them as fixed categories. Instead we should see them as providing us with broad outlines into which we will gradually learn to fit our growing understanding of the elements. In each of us as unique human beings they meld together to form something far less clear-cut.
Of the four sensory signatures of colour, sound, smell and emotion I always think the most accessible initially are the emotional signs. The others are likely to be more difficult for us to detect, since our senses tend to become blunted as we grow. Our emotional sensitivity, however, has to continue to be sufficiently acute throughout life to guide us through the intricacies of human relationships, and this is why we may often concentrate our diagnostic antennae more upon how a patient makes us feel emotionally than upon whether we can detect a specific smell or colour. With time, of course, our other senses grow sharp enough to help us with our diagnosis, but even now, after 40 years of practice, I find that my first impression of a patient is based upon their emotional impact upon me. Subsequently, I will draw upon information my other senses give me to add to this.
At least that is true for me, but may not of course be the same for other five element practitioners. One of my fellow students at our Leamington College, for example, had a very acute sense of smell, and used his ability to pinpoint a five element smell as the basis for his diagnosis. Presumably painters must have an acute ability to see colour, and musicians an equally highly-developed sensitivity to sound. I am neither a painter nor a musician, so I tend to fall back on what I feel is my most developed sensory skill, which is that of recognizing the emotional signals directed at me by my patients.
Here, too, though, we must beware of relying too heavily upon boxing the elements into too rigid categories. Something like this is always likely to happen as a result of being told that a particular emotion is assigned to each element. If we take Wood, for example, whose emotion is described as anger, it becomes all too easy to think that any expression of anger must point to this element, whereas experience will gradually help us understand that each element can express anger in its own way, since every person, whatever their element, has a Liver and a Gall-Bladder, which are Wood’s organs within us. For example, I am of the Fire element, but can all too often explode with anger, but for very different reasons from those which my Wood or Water friends will express. Earth’s sense of fear differs from that of Water, Wood, Metal or Fire, just as Metal’s expression of joy differs from that of each of the other elements.
I like to think of the impact an element makes on me to help
me gauge its individual characteristics better.
Each has a different impact. I
think of the word “impact” as a good description of my reaction to a physical
force. We know that everything is formed
of force fields. You only have to move
your hands slowly together with your eyes shut to feel the point at which the
force field of one hand engages with that of the other, well before the hands
physically touch. In acupuncture terms,
we call this force “qi”. It is that
which creates all life and which we manipulate with our needles to help restore
health and balance. It is therefore
entirely appropriate that we should experience the approach and presence of
another person each time as a kind of physical impact upon us. If we add to this that extra dimension, that
of the qi at the deeper, emotional
and spiritual level, then the total impact a person makes upon us can be very
striking, and, from a five element acupuncture point of view, very revealing
indeed.
The following are some of my observations on how the
different elements affect me, and some of the ways I have learnt to help me
recognize their signatures, and use these as a help to diagnosis.
When I asked some Wood people what they want of their
interaction with others, they all agreed that what they wanted was to “engage”
with them. This is an interesting
word. My dictionary gives it a very
active meaning, which includes the sense of battling and grappling with, and is
much used in military terminology. It
implies more than just interacting, for there is the sense within it of some
kind of a struggle, or, at the very least, pressure from one side against the
other.
Impact is a good word to use for the Wood element, because
it has to do everything it does with a kind of a push behind it to get itself
and all around it going. To do this
requires some effort. It is not just the
result of some smooth transition from a state of quiescence in winter moving
towards the full-blow energy of nature at its height in summer. The impetus necessary to get things moving in
spring comes with a kind of a jerk, like the movement in the body requiring a
push to set it in motion.
The way such a jolt makes itself felt in us when we are in
the presence of Wood is a little like a blow to the solar plexus, slight to
strong depending on what action Wood wants to take, and what emphasis it wishes
to give any action. It has taken me a
long time to work out a way of dealing with its strong needs. I tend to go through an initial period of
wanting to step away, as though shrinking from the push I feel coming towards
me, then I experience a flicker, or more than a flicker, of irritation at
feeling that I am being outmanoeuvred in some way, before I finally reach a
more balanced stage of understanding, where I know that to help my Wood patient
I have to stand firm and, as it were, counter-punch, however gently. The force I feel behind Wood’s approach to me
is far greater than I feel with all the other elements, except in a slightly
different way for Water, and is totally absent in one element, Metal.
Fire, maybe because it is my element, tends to make me relax
since I am on familiar terrain and therefore no longer feel under any pressure
to react. It is as though I do not have
to put on a mask of any kind, and can be who I really am. As a practitioner this runs the risk of
making things a little too cosy, with a tendency to overlook inevitable areas
of tension, in case these disturb the comfortable atmosphere I and my patient
are hoping to create for ourselves. On
the other hand, it may be just this atmosphere which makes it easier for a Fire
patient to open up to their practitioner in the knowledge that what they reveal
will not be misunderstood.
As I know from my own experience, Fire needs to avoid by any
means possible making other people feel vulnerable and judged. It is also the element which will most
quickly assume that any troubles it encounters are its own fault and the result
of something it has done wrong. Because
I feel at ease with Fire, I am not as aware as people of other elements might
be of the pressure it puts upon me, which makes me feel warm and
comfortable. I welcome its familiar
impact, whilst this may well not be the case for people of other elements. Because this is a very personal reaction I
have to think hard and watch carefully how Fire’s interactions with other
people unfold.
Earth, on the other hand, exerts strong pressure upon me,
but this pressure is more in the nature of a counter-movement. I am drawn towards Earth as though sucked in
by some centrifugal force which I find difficult to resist. I see this as an expression of Earth’s need
to surround itself with others, as though cocooning itself within their
protection. Earth can exert a strong
pull, akin to a sucking movement, as though gravity takes hold of me and I
cannot escape its grasp. I became aware
for the first time of the pressure exerted by gravity on my body one day as I
lay in the bath waiting for the bathwater to drain away. I could feel my flesh being sucked down to
the bottom of the bath, and I could hardly resist this sufficiently to stand up. It was only through this experience that I
understood the strength of gravity’s downwards pull, and by extension, the
strength of the Earth element’s pull on those around it. Where the impact for Wood is very much yang
in nature, pushing hard at us away from itself, that of Earth, by contrast, is
very much yin in nature, pulling hard at us but towards itself.
With Metal, though, we move almost into a vacuum, reflecting
the space which Metal people seek to keep around them and without which they
feel threatened and uneasy. I feel
something more insubstantial than a physical pull from Metal. Instead what I feel is my own unease at being
observed almost neutrally. When we judge
people we do this most successfully from a distance, as we stand back and watch. Metal’s impact upon me is therefore not so
much a physical one, as with the other elements, but rather an emotional one,
often bringing with it the uneasy feeling that Metal knows something about me
which may be to my detriment. I feel
that I am being observed with a cool and clinical eye. And if I misread the signals Metal is sending
me, and step too firmly into its space, it will cut off all connection with me
and retreat out of sight.
Water, too, knows how to retreat if it feels under threat,
but it retreats not, as Metal does, because its privacy and its need for
solitude are being invaded, but because it feels threatened and
endangered. Again, unlike Metal, though,
it will not only retreat and try to move away, but it may feel the need to do
more to counter whatever is threatening it, and will gather its forces together
to counterattack. Then the apparent
passivity which people may attribute to it may turn at the slightest hint of
real danger into a truly terrifying attacking force, making the impact Water
will have over us the fiercest, most overwhelming of all the elements, as
though the placid waters of a pond are transformed within minutes into a
devastating tsunami. Often the onslaught
which Water can unleash so suddenly may be ignored until it is too late to
counter, which makes it all the deadlier for its very suddenness. This gives to any attack by Water such a
different quality from that of Wood, which comes full force towards us with no
attempt at hiding its nature. Water
instead rears its head unexpectedly, and often, as with a tusunami, is only
gradually perceived as it silently gathers its strength before inundating us.
Some of the images of the effect of the elements upon me may
be difficult to reconcile with the apparently less extreme examples of
civilized human behaviour which we encounter in our social interactions, but
hidden within even the most apparently harmless human activities lie traces of
what I have described above, though probably often well-disguised behind behaviour
which is considered socially more acceptable.
Nature “raw in tooth and claw” is a true description of much that goes
on under the surface of what would be considered normal, everyday behaviour.
During our training we were introduced to the main
principles of point selection, which I have always felt stood me in excellent
stead, and have underpinned all my work both as practitioner and teacher since
then. Recently, though, I realised that
I had taken for granted how much I had adapted these principles over the years
of my practice, often without realising I was doing this. This led me to expand what I had written in my
Handbook of Five Element Acupuncture
about point selection. Originally I
listed the points for only the first five treatments. This I now extended to cover the first 15
treatments, because novice five element practitioners have told me that they
would welcome further guidance.
As I looked through these treatments I began to realise how
much I had adapted the point selection principles I am teaching now to take
account of what I recognise to be the individual needs of my patients, so that
in effect my point selection is often not truly in line with the very
principles I was telling my students they should follow. Looking in detail at each example of
treatment selection, I realised that my choice of points obviously reflect my
growing confidence as a practitioner. So
then I have moved on to look at how I actually decide upon a specific
treatment, and what has led me to adopt an often more idiosyncratic approach to
point selection. I have taken to
observing myself more closely in the practice room to try and work out the
thought processes behind my selection of points for a specific patient at a
specific time, and I realise that my selections have much to do with my
assessment of how my patients present themselves. As practitioners we become acutely aware of
how a patient feels to us, of how the energies flowing from the patient towards
us are impacting upon us, and how far this impact is resonating with what we have
learnt about our responses to one or other element.
We are trained to observe our patients with all our
emotional and sensory antennae on full alert, aware that we have to interpret
what they are conveying to us in a remarkably short period of time between the
few minutes of our initial interaction with them and the time when we lift a
needle to treat. JR Worsley would joke
that you only need a few minutes to treat a patient: one minute to decide which element is crying
out for treatment, one to do the treatment and the last minute to say
goodbye. The less experienced
practitioner amongst us will take far longer than this, but my own experience
of more than 35 years’ practice tells me that it takes me an increasingly
shorter time to decide what treatment to give.
Often I seem to register quickly that the patient may be showing signs
of a Husband/Wife imbalance or there is a need for an AE drain. I will also be quick to see when they look
well and require only the slightest nudge to their element before I can send
them on their way. What I am aware of,
therefore, is that I have lost much, if not all, of the worry any novice
practitioner will have about trusting my senses to tell me a great deal
surprisingly quickly about my patient’s needs, and this usually happens well
before I have listened to what the patients have to say or have taken their pulses. In other words, I allow my understanding of
how the elements are manifesting themselves in my patients to lead me to assess
quickly what impact they are having upon me, and then for me to decide what
treatment is likely to be needed.
In the early years of their practice, five element practitioners
need to learn the general principles which underpin point selection, but with
practice each practitioner will gradually learn to allow themselves some
latitude in how to apply them, as their understanding of their patients’ needs
develops. My mantra of “think elements,
not points” has stayed true for me at every stage of my practice, but my
experience has led me to see that “thinking elements” means that we become
increasingly adept at assessing an element’s needs and thus adapting our point
selection to satisfy those needs. This means that, as with all principles, we
must allow ourselves a surprising degree of flexibility in adapting these
principles to specific practice situations. Both as teachers and as students we
have to accept that point selection, far from being a prescriptive science with
rigid rules of application, is instead an art dependent on the practitioner’s
ability to adapt these principles flexibly to fit a patient’s unique needs at
any particular time. Just as there is
nothing rigidly fixed about how energy courses through all nature bringing life
to each of us, so there must be nothing rigid in a five element practitioner’s
approach to encouraging these elemental energies to greater balance through our
choice of points to do this work.
As with the teaching of any skill, time and much patience is
always needed for a practitioner to learn their craft and to gain enough
experience to dare trust that their own level of understanding permits them to
start “doing their own thing” in terms of their practice. It has however always comforted me to know
that none of my patients has ever reacted badly to any treatment I have
given. They may of course suffer the
temporary discomfort caused by to the appearance of some block or other, which
forms a necessary and natural part of each treatment, quickly dealt with. The worst that can happen is for patients to
experience no change at all, even after a succession of treatments, and I
always see this as a failure on my part to assess their needs accurately. Whatever points we select to treat our
patients, we can be sure that a little bit of variety and possibly a bit of
daring in our point selection can do no harm, and can incidentally also help to
keep us on our toes.
Looking back at the early years of my practice, I sometimes
cringe with shame at some of the mistakes I made. These were not, as some people might assume,
to do with my very basic understanding of the elements, or my choice of
treatments, although they, too, were with hindsight often rather naïve or even
somewhat inappropriate. Instead they
were nearly all to do with my relationship to my patients. Based on something which JR Worsley had
impressed upon us, I somehow thought that I had to make myself available to my
patients at all times, even interpreting what he said as meaning that a patient
should be able to contact me at any time they wanted to. Those were the days well before emails and
mobile phones when patient-practitioner contact was nearly 100% by good
old-fashioned telephone. Since I worked
from home, I soon realised that I needed to install a dedicated practice line
so as not to confuse my private with my professional phone calls. This meant also having two answering
machines, making quite an impressive array of phone equipment lining my kitchen
shelf.
I still remember the excitement of coming back home and
seeing the “message received” light blinking on my practice phone. I would always hope that this meant that a
new patient was making contact, for each new patient was then a highly exciting
event. There was, however, one definite
advantage of patients having to get in touch with me by phone, and not, as
usually happens nowadays, by email or text message. This meant that when I answered them our
first contact was always person-to-person, and not the much more impersonal
contact of the written word through emails.
It is now often overlooked how important this initial contact can be,
not only because it offers both patient and practitioner a bridge to that key
aspect of five element treatment, which is the setting up of a good
relationship with our patients, but it also gives us the luxury of a first
attempt at trying to diagnose two key components of an element’s presence, the
tone of voice and the emotion the patient is showing. On the patient’s side, it helps get them past
the often challenging situation of a first meeting in the practice room. I felt that this first phone call shaped the
nature of my future relationship to my patients.
But the flipside of these personal phone calls was that it
gave my patients the impression that they could phone me whenever they wanted
to, and this was where I started to make things difficult for myself. I didn’t then have enough confidence to lay
down careful guidelines as to when they could phone and what they could phone
me about. And I soon found this led to a
further mistake. Patients got used to
phoning me at odd hours of the day, either early in the morning or, most often,
rather late in the evening. And I would
find myself engaged in long conversations with them, all of which, I should
have told them, were best suited to being continued at their next treatment. It took me quite some time, and many
interrupted evenings of phone calls, before I realised that what the patients
and I were talking about belonged much more appropriately to the practice room,
where it would help me determine the kind of treatment the patient needed. As five element acupuncturists it is the
treatment we offer our patient which helps solve their problems, and although
five element acupuncture is partly a talking therapy, because of course our
patients need to talk to us and we to them, it is good to remember that it is
the needle, not our words, which eventually helps them.
This open-door, or rather open-telephone, policy of mine
also opened the door to the thorny question of discussing the element I was
treating them on. I learnt to my cost
that it is never a good idea to talk this through with a patient, because often
one of the reasons for doing this can be our unconscious desire for reassurance
from the patient that we are on the right track, and it is surely not their
task to help us. We are often hoping that
they will confirm that we have made the right choice. I have come to realise that nobody, even the
most experienced five element practitioner, is good at diagnosing their own
element, though practitioners often like to feel that they are the best judge
of this. Unfortunately this is rarely
the case, since we all tend to be rather blind to our own faults and like to
think we have a special relationship to an element whose qualities we admire. If you mistakenly start to discuss a
patient’s element with them, what do you do when you change your mind and
change element, or change it several times?
Do you tell your patient this, or leave them with the mistaken idea that
they are of the Earth element when you have perhaps moved through Fire before
finally landing on Wood? We all know
how often we find ourselves trawling through the elements before finally
finding the correct one. Thankfully,
though, this happens less and less for me now.
So take heart all you novice five element acupuncturists out there.
I always advise practitioners to lay down firm guidelines
for their patients on when and how to get in touch with them between treatments,
particularly now in the age of social media.
If we don’t do this, we are
laying ourselves open to the possibility of patients controlling treatment.
Finally, it is not a good idea to tell patients what points
you are using apart from very occasionally.
It is difficult enough for us to put into words why we are choosing a
particular point or set of points, let alone explain this to a lay person. If they ask, I have learnt to say, “I am not
here to teach you to be an acupuncturist.
If you are interested in learning more, I suggest you read my Simple
Guide which explains my approach to treating you”. The following are some of the few exceptions
to this rule: telling patients about
horary and seasonal treatments (because we have to book our patients in at
specific times for these), and correcting an Akabane imbalance, because
patients are often fascinated to find that the readings change after
treatment. I have found that this is a
very good way of convincing rather sceptical patients, particularly hard-headed
businessmen, at the very start of treatment that there is something in what I
do.
It is also useful to explain to patients that some of their
symptoms may be the result of an entry/exit block, and obviously we need to
explain in a little detail why we think a CV/GV (Ren Mai/Du Mai) block needs to
be cleared. In the case of this block I
always first ask if the patient feels very exhausted all the time, a very good
sign of a CV/GV block, and tell them that this is because the main pathways of
energy running up and down the body are blocked, draining them of energy. Sometimes I add the fact that JR Worsley told
us that if only these points were on the wrist we would do them on every
patient!
On the other hand for obvious reasons I never tell a patient
that I am about to clear a Husband/Wife block or do Possession treatment,
because the last thing you want to do is worry the patient by giving them the
idea that there is something seriously wrong with them. With Possession, however, I tell the patient
that I am doing some lovely connecting treatment, and that I need their help to
make sure that they feel each of the seven points properly. I have noticed that patients needing this
treatment really understand what I mean when I say this, as though I am reassuring
them that I know that they feel disconnected.
This is also a good way of describing Possession, which is in effect a
level of disconnection of the spirit.
I am passing on some of my tips for what to tell patients
because I wish I had been told much of what I learnt by hit and miss through my
own practice. It would have avoided some
of the problems I created for myself.
Like all skills, we have to practise how to create a good relationship
with our patients. A successful
relationship is one where we are able to match what we have to offer with what
our patients need as smoothly as possible.
Here, of course, our knowledge of the elements will act as our guide,
for what one person needs will differ very markedly from what somebody of a
different element will need. Some people are lucky, and either by their nature
or by the circumstance of their lives have an ability to empathize with other
people that a fellow practitioner has first to learn, and all of us will find
it easier dealing with some elements than with others. Perhaps to some people’s surprise we are not
necessarily most at our ease with those of our own element, because seeing our
own needs reflected in a patient may make it difficult for us to maintain an
appropriate distance. The secret here is
to recognise that we may always find certain relationships with patients of
certain elements more complex and difficult than others, and remain aware of
this as we engage with these patients.
I will describe some of my own reactions and difficulties
with patients of certain elements. These are personal to me, and every other
practitioner must study their own responses and learn from them. But learn they must, otherwise they will not
understand their patients’ needs. More
importantly their patients will not feel understood, and then their elements
will take to hiding themselves away. How can a five element acupuncturist treat
if we don’t know which element is crying out for help?
Nobody should think that this comes easily to any of
us. When I look back at my own practice,
I can see many instances where I did not understand what a patient needed, and I
offered my help in a way which was not wanted.
Inevitably it was these patients who decided quite quickly that I was
not the practitioner for them. And they
were right! How could I help somebody if
I was misreading what they were asking of me?
It was as though I was talking in an emotional language foreign to these
patients, or rather assuming that both of us were talking in the same language
when we very obviously were not. One way
of looking at relationships with our patients is thus to see them as though
they require us to learn to speak in an emotional language with which only our
patient is familiar and at ease in. We
therefore need to learn to speak in a different emotional language for each
patient. And like learning any new
language, this takes time and a good deal of practise.
We all know the warm feeling we have when we have got it
right with a patient. It is those times
when we know that we have not which we should accept as teaching us the most. JR always said that it was far better if
students observing him with patients did not get the elements he diagnosed
right, because the only true learning is through our mistakes.
If I look at my relationship with the Wood element, as my
first example, I realise that it has taken me a long time to work out a way of
dealing with its strong needs. I tend to
go through almost the same pattern of behaviour each time I encounter a Wood
patient. I pass through an initial
period of wanting to step away, as though shrinking from the push I feel coming
towards me, then I experience a flicker of irritation, or more than a flicker, at
feeling that I am being outmanoeuvred in some way, before I finally reach a
more balanced stage of understanding, where I know that to help my Wood patient
I have to stand firm and, as it were, counter-punch, however gently.
With all Fire patients, on the other hand, I experience
first a slight feeling of relief, since I am moving on to the familiar
territory of my own element, accompanied by an initial sense of
relaxation. Fire is the most articulate
of all elements, enjoying speech as its way of communicating. Since I, too, like communicating through
speech, it is easy for the patient and me to fall into the habit of indulging
in a kind of idle chatter with which we both feel at ease. Experience has taught me, though, that I must
issue a warning to myself to take care and not let the ease of this interaction
divert from the reason why the patient is here.
I have to be aware, too, that in its need to make other people happy,
Fire may also feel it should make light of its problems, and I have to be on
the look-out in case I buy into the cheerful mask and ignore what lies beneath
it.
One way I have devised of helping me here is through the
simple expedient of employing silence, a tool we too seldom use in the practice
room. I try consciously to quieten the
emotional tone by reminding myself to fall silent. Silence on my part gives my patient
permission to stop any superficial chatter, and offers them the space to think
out what they really need to tell me. I
have often found falling silent is the most difficult thing for me to do, and I
have had to train myself to be on the alert against encouraging a babble of words
to flood the practice room.
Although it is easy for me to develop a very warm
relationship with all my Fire patients, this ironically makes it harder to set
the correct emotional tone which is helpful for my patients. Familiarity does not breed contempt, far from
it in this case, but it certainly breeds a false sense of relaxation.
The difficulties I experience with Earth patients are of a
different kind from those with Wood or Fire.
I have found that the need to be nurtured which all Earth people have
awakes an echo of the same need in me, because at some deep level within me I
would like some of the same kind of nurturing I am being asked to offer
Earth. A few days ago, interestingly, an
Earth practitioner told me that he finds his first interaction with his
patients disturbing because he feels their differing needs tugging at his Earth
element which is reluctant to offer what is being demanded of it.
Once I am aware of this reaction in myself, I remind myself
firmly that I am here for the patient and not for my own needs. What Earth needs is not a blanket response of
sympathy of the “Oh, you poor dear” kind, but instead it needs to be
understood. It wants to be heard, and
wants to be heard to the end if possible without interruption. Its thinking is a circular process, ending
where it began and then beginning again.
If it is out of balance, it begins again with the same words and goes
over the same ground, like an oxen tied to a circular grindstone, going round
and round. When it is in balance, this
need to churn over the same thoughts is lessened, but never disappears
completely. Since its function is to
process all things, thoughts as well as food, it has to perform this task
endlessly as the other elements pass their energies to it for processing.
If I remain clear that my Earth patients need to be allowed
time to circle round a subject, even though I may have heard the same thing in
the same words before, I am able to stand back and allow this circular movement
to continue without getting irritated.
But being a quick thinker and talker myself, the slow chewing-of-the-cud
which is Earth’s way of thinking can tend to irritate me and make me want to
interrupt it if I am not careful. So a
warning sign goes off in my head with every Earth patient I treat: Let the patient speak, Nora, and only
interrupt or add your own comments when you have given your patient time to
process his/her thoughts and express them fully in the way they want.
With Metal I seem to have a far less difficult relationship
than with the other elements, perhaps because it demands space to be itself and
allows me time to catch my breath, as it were.
No immediate reaction is demanded of me, except an acceptance that it
wants to be the judge of how our relationship should develop in a way
satisfactory to itself. It is happy with
space and is the most comfortable of all the elements with silence, for it
needs silence in which to work out its own solutions to life’s problems. This need for space and silence presents a
great challenge to my Fire element, if I do not recognise it in time, and find
myself starting to gabble to fill the silence.
With all Metal patients I have learnt, too, that I must hold back my own
impulse to share my thoughts, for this can easily lead to a kind of role
reversal since I find that I can often learn from Metal’s detached wisdom.
Metal patients are not, however, there to teach me, nor for
me to teach them, but to find the support for their Metal energies which
treatment will offer them. With Metal I
need say almost nothing and let the treatment do its work silently. The practice of silence which Metal needs is
that which respects its need to solve its own problems. The silence which I have to encourage myself
to offer Fire is different; it is aimed
at preventing it from talking so much that it forgets why it is coming for
treatment.
Finally I come to the problems I may experience in dealing
appropriately with my Water patients. I
do not find the demands Water makes upon me difficult to meet, although others
may. The need for a reassuring approach
to still the panic which lies deep within the heart of all Water people is not
something alien to me, but something I feel at ease with and able to offer
without feeling in any way diminished.
My main difficulty comes from my inability to recognise the
Water element in my patients quickly enough in the first place. We all know how Water likes to disguise
itself and hide, and it has taken me longer to detect its presence than that of
the other elements. Even now I have a
tendency to see Water’s uneasy laughter as coming from Fire. Its elusive nature will often make me
question whether I am really in the presence of Water or not. Once recognised, though, I feel able to offer
what I think it needs, provided that I stay focused on the profound fears which
lie beneath its often apparently confident surface. This most ambitious of all elements, and the
one most likely to get to the top of whatever profession it chooses, harbours a
terrified underbelly. I must never
overlook its need for these hidden fears to be acknowledged by me, and for me
to offer them the correct level of reassurance.
