Five Element Acupuncture

The guiding ideals of acupuncture differ wildly between Traditional Chinese Medicine acupuncture and it's more holistic-minded cousin, Five Element Acupuncture.

There are two main styles of acupuncture being practiced today: Traditional Chinese Medicine and Five Element.

Practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) observe physical symptoms and design a course of treatment to eliminate those symptoms, while Five Element Practitioners focus on the emotional and spiritual aspects of disease. Many people are familiar with Traditional Chinese medicine, but Five Element Acupuncture is much rarer. There are only two schools in the United States - The Academy for Five Element Acupuncture in Gainesville, Florida and The Institute of Classical Five Element Acupuncture in Santa Monica, California - that specialize in training students in this form of acupuncture.

The spiritual aspects of acupuncture were originally removed by the communist government of China.

Traditional Chinese Medicine came into being during the time of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Before that, the ancient art of Chinese medicine, including acupuncture, was passed down from parents to children. At the time of the Cultural Revolution, the government decided to standardize Chinese medicine by scrutinizing family lineages and rooting out any elements that seemed "spiritual". The new officially approved collection of techniques came to be known as "Traditional Chinese Medicine", taught in government-sponsored schools rather than families. Although this standardization created a system of medicine with few variations, it also tore ancient family-based traditions from their spiritual roots.

Five Element Acupuncture embraces the spiritual and emotional components that were stripped from TCM.

Practitioners are attentive to both physical symptoms as well as the underlying emotional and spiritual components of disease. These practitioners will sit with a patient before treatment, inquiring into their history and environment in order to come to a full understanding of the individual. They believe that the five elements – fire, earth, metal, water, and wood – are an integral part of who we are as human beings. For instance, fire is an element of summer and is connected to the emotion of joy and laughter. If this element is impeded within an individual, they may lose their ability to feel joy or connection with other people. Earth Element is associated with nurturing and sympathy. When this element is out of harmony, a person might feel in constant need of love and reassurance, but when the element is restored to balance, this individual will have a solid core of love and warmth to give themselves and others. Five Element practitioners believe that acupuncture will not only heal the root cause of disease, but also move the person back into harmony with themselves and the natural world.

Five Element Acupuncture relies on intuition as well as knowledge.

Some Five Element acupuncturists assert that the reason this form of acupuncture is so rare in the United States is that we are a culture of the mind instead of the heart. While training in Traditional Chinese Medicine relies almost solely on the acquisition of text-book knowledge, Five Element acupuncturists are trained to do something much more challenging: cultivate their personal intuition in order to "read" energy patterns in patients. For instance, a Five Element Acupuncturist, while working with a patient, might intuitively detect heaviness around the person's spiritual heart. Since these practitioners are deeply invested in emotional and spiritual well-being, they might decide to needle Stomach 12, an acupuncture point also known as "Broken Bowl". This point addresses a spiritual state of being in which joy drains through the cracks, so that a person is unable to contain the experience of pleasure. Addressing this emotional imbalance will allow the patient to absorb more happiness, and hence, begin to heal physical imbalances as well.

Five Element Acupuncture Heals Holistically

While Traditional Chinese Medicine is focused on understanding and alleviating physical symptoms, Five Element practitioners have returned to the spiritual roots of the ancient healing art of acupuncture. This form of acupuncture is focused on restoring body, mind, and spirit at the same time, so that a person is able to achieve inner harmony, and ultimately, good health.

For more information on Five Element Acupuncture, visit the EnvyMyHealth.com Acupuncture & Acupressure Channel!

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