Beyond Pain Relief: The Emotional Benefits of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine
A common misconception about acupuncture assumes that it is only useful for treating physical pain. While it can be extremely effective in this regard, Chinese Medicine has historically treated everything from physical injury to internal disease, to emotional distress.
During its two thousand plus years of development, this medicine has always considered the health of the body, mind, and emotions to be intricately linked. (For example, it is a common observation of Chinese medical practitioners that people who experience prolonged periods of strong emotion can develop certain symptoms). The classic Chinese medical texts even list emotions as potential causes of disease. Usually this only occurs when the emotional state is either prolonged (for months or years), or of a particularly intense nature, such as in traumatic events (Maciocia, 2015, p.253), but this fact helps to illustrate just how highly Chinese Medicine considers the emotions in diagnosis and treatment.
One of the things that drew me so deeply to the practice of Chinese Medicine was the profound effect it had on my sense of emotional stability and well-being during a difficult period of upheaval in my life. At that time, I was introduced to a few key teachers with some life changing advice that ultimately gave me the tools to help manage and survive these challenges. To this day I am amazed at how the principles and practices of Chinese Medicine continue to inform and deepen a sense of “calm amidst the storm.” One of these teachers is an experienced acupuncturist, Dr. YvonneFarrell, who was the clinic supervisor
at the acupuncture school where I was receiving treatment. To me she felt like the archetype of a wise grandmother who, with plenty kindness, pointed out exactly where things were going wrong for me. In time I came to realize that she was really the first person who helped me identify one of the root causes that was contributing to my suffering.
A large part of her practice is devoted to helping her patients overcome the challenges that are holding them back from becoming the best versions of themselves. To quote from her book (2016), “We can create a treatment that instills hope and confidence that change is possible. We are able to give our patients the ability to conceive of a new way of being. We can support their ability to transform. We can support their ability to let go and finally to reconnect with their authentic sense of self. We can do that at the same time we are treating pain” (p.37-38).
We all have stumbling blocks, things that keep us from being the person we truly know we are, somewhere, deep down at a core level, and acupuncture can be a valuable tool to help unravel and remove those blocks, and to help us evolve.
References:
Farrell, Y. (2016). Psycho-Emotional Pain and the Eight Extraordinary Vessels. London, United Kingdom: Singing Dragon.
Maciocia, G. (2015). The Foundations ofChinese Medicine. Edinburgh, United Kingdom: Elsevier.