A Blue Poppy blog post by Bob Quinn
I have been practicing acupuncture-herbal medicine-bodywork for 20 years now. It’s hard to believe that many years have gone by. What a fascinating journey it has been. For most of that time I have invested my time and energy into mastering what we could call the “what” of East Asian Medicine, which is to say the information side of things: What do you do when you feel this particular pulse quality, what do you understand when you palpate the abdomen and discover a certain finding, what does this herb do when combined with another herb, and so on. This is all very important knowledge of course.
In the last few years though I have moved “how” to center stage and shifted “what” to a more supportive role. I would not have accepted this transition as a young practitioner. Back then I thought I needed to know it all, to master all of the theories and techniques of Chinese Medicine—wen bing, six conformations, 5E, san jiao theory, and so on. I no longer hold to that view. I see it as almost an impossibility to master all of that theory, and I even question how much better a practitioner you would become as a result of the added information.
Let me jump to a story a student at NUNM related to me on shift the other day at our university health center. She is also interested in anthroposophical medicine as well as Chinese and naturopathic medicine. She was at a retreat for anthroposophical doctors and witnessed a practitioner using a medicated oil to anoint just a few points on a patient. They were simple points that would make sense to any student of TCM. She said that it took 15 minutes to apply the oil to just three points, and that the entire experience had a sacred glow to it. In fact, she told me that everyone in the room witnessing the anointing had tears in their eyes. This is “how” raised to a refined niveau. This is medicine as an extension of spiritual practice.
The “what” perspective would have said the functions of yin tang and nei guan (PC 6) (these were the points used) are such and such and that acupressure with the medicated oil activated these functions. The “what” would have focused heavily on which herbs were used to make the oil. Please be clear: I am NOT saying that these informational tidbits about herb properties and point functions are unimportant. They are indeed important, and we need to know something of the theories and techniques of TCM or else we can’t claim we are practicing Chinese Medicine. But this story clearly depicts how very important “how” is. It was the manner of the anointing that made this event so special for the patient and all who witnessed it, not so much the function of the points chosen to receive the oil.
I think this has real implications for our training programs. We need to make our students aware of this discussion. They are understandably focused on “what” in their studies, but this should not be the exclusive focus of our programs. We do not have to put off the cultivation of a skilled and sensitive “how” until after the theory has been studied and mastered. In fact, I believe the students will buy in more completely to their studies when “how” is also addressed.
Let me jump to another story from perhaps 8 years ago, also at our university health center. In the second semester of internship a student came to my shift and said: “I’ve already learned that just putting needles into the point combinations we learned in class and getting deqi sensation is not enough to get the changes you want and would expect from knowledge of their indications. I want to learn a better way.” This was an intern who had clearly arrived at the point where he had learned that “how” is very significant. There was nothing wrong with his knowledge base; he was in fact one of our best students. But the “what” is simply not enough; we need an elevated sense of the “how” of things.
I hope I have stimulated a little thought on this matter. In an era when everyone is jumping on the integrative medicine bandwagon in which “what” seems to have become all-important, I want to make sure we do not lose a sense of how important “how” is.
Best wishes all around,
Bob Quinn