Traditional Acupuncturists Sydney:
Throughout my years of studying and practicing acupuncture I have always endeavoured to be a well informed, educated, acupuncturist. It pains me as a scholar, physician, and teacher to see practitioners who have not continued their understanding of the medicine outside of their base graduate studies. So what then is an educated acupuncturist? And what is a traditional acupuncturist?
In my opinion an educated acupuncturist is one that understands the tradition upon which the practice has been established. Acupuncture has such an immense and rich history which extends far back to the early civilisation of empirical China. I consider myself a classical acupuncturist as my clinical techniques, methodologies and philosophy are an expression of “the classical times” of the Han (206BCE – 220CE). Most acupuncturists of today consider themselves as traditional acupuncturists because of the label of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) attached to their education and profession. Nothing could be further from the truth. TCM as a medical practice has very thin threads attached to any tradition of the medicine of China. TCM is a term / label that was used for the purpose of establishing Chinese medicine for the international market and for unified China.
A traditional acupuncturist, to me, is a practitioner that draws from the various periods, texts, and lineages of acupuncture that have been relevant throughout its history. If a practitioner draws from the techniques of Song, Tang, Ming, or Qing for instance then they are doing so of a tradition. Outside of that, the acupuncturist can consider themselves either classical (Han) or of the modern time. This is significant and vital for the patient to understand – is your practitioner drawing their material based on an established medical paradigm? Or are they trying to practice what they feel is established in a foreign (relative to Chinese traditions) medical paradigm? Unfortunately, the later is true of the majority of today’s practitioners and hence why there exist skeptics and incredible discrepancies among practitioners. Does this mean that TCM does not work?
Absolutely not. TCM is very valuable, however, due to the style of how it is taught around the globe it is currently a clinical mess. If practitioners are appropriately educated in the history and variations of style in Chinese medicine then they will be more capable of making informed clinical decisions. The greatest step towards this would be for regulating bodies of Chinese medicine to be more open to the immense variations of practice.
In good health,
David White Classical Acupuncture
