free speech clarification

[Guest guest]

, <@i...> wrote:

 

I just don't think (mystical practices)

> have anything to do with " Chinese medicine " .

 

should say " professional mainstream chinese internal medicine " .

clearly the broad view of CM includes all practices that were used to

improve health.

 

[Guest guest]

I just don't think (mystical practices) > have anything to do with "Chinese medicine". should say "professional mainstream chinese internal medicine". clearly the broad view of CM includes all practices that were used toimprove health. Todd

thanks for the clarity on that point. You would laugh if you knew of my own first contacts with mainstream CM as well as my wife's in Fongshon, Taiwan. My own first contact was Michael Broffman in the 1970s who never once gave me acupuncture in many visits. He only once gave me herbs. All of my visits to his home were spent in 5 element theory lessons helping me identify those elements in my life and how to balance them. So for me that's professional mainstream CM. Then I went to ACTCM when it first opened on Geary Blvd in SF in 1980 (?) and Howard Harrison "calmed my ancestors" and "kick-started my liver" with an effective acupuncture treatment and herbal formula when I had sore throats. I couldn't have gotten through undergraduate school, medical school and graduate school without support from CM. I've seen what you call mainstream when working later at ACTCM and Min Tong. Although I must say that in my brief times in Taiwan, the CM docs did not attempt in any way to appease the WM docs. Later I was greatful for a few years of Nam Singh's classes so as to enjoy more of the Michael Broffman kind of input.

 

My wife's case was more dramatic. She was run over by a large truck at age 4 and her legs were thought to be virtually severed just below the hip where the tires went. Upon hearing that her daughter would not walk again and might likely lose her lower extremities, Suchen's mother stole her from the hospital and took her to a tui na master (perhaps like Dr. Kang). The master worked all night and kept Suchen the next few days. In the end Suchen healed up well and is now a distance running with me.

 

I've seen American graduates of TCM schools attempt to emulate the persona and style of a WM doctor to carry out their work. I personally have so many friends that are MDs, that I feel quite put off by a CM practitioner who puts on a completely Western front unless they have that training. Actually when my own health is on the line, I've got no patience for that whatsoever and steer clear of it. I'm sensing that you would like to not put off WM doctors. Perhaps even somehow appease their doubts about CM and gain their respect. I sense that you believe that without such an approach, you would be harming your profession as you say. I feel that would be giving your center of balance over too far to your perceptions of what's appropriate. I can appreciate any desire on your part to become ever more rigorous with your training and knowledge within your own paradigm, but I can not support your view that without the acceptance of WM, you are somehow less of a professional. You are only less of a professional if you do not proceed according to the principles of your training. Appeasing someone else's principles is inappropriate and will through you off balance. That may harm your profession much more than bending over to appease someone else's principles.

 

Another subtext for all of this is the nature of WM. I entered WM school to eventually become a kind of psychiatrist until my naivete wore off and realized that WM would not allow that indulgence. It's a long story, but it mainly has to do with my interests in emotional development and use of emotions as indicators and tools. I discovered that being a developmental psychiatrist in America doesn't exist outside of teaching and parenting. My brother's Jungian psychiatry practice comes a bit closer to what I would have liked as a clinician. Psychiatry is the bad boy of WM for being not so biochemical in it's approach. So psychiatry suffers from what CM also suffers. CM does not differentiate between body and psyche. WM can't abide that. So you see, it's not your problem to make CM palatable to WM. It's really WM's problem to grow up and overcome its dualistic think/feel or body/psyche split. If WM dismisses your professionalism, I recommend that you view it as symptomatic of WM's pathology or as a sign of it's lack of development. WM is still as yet a young boy fascinated by his high tech toys. Powerful? Yes. Mature? No. I would not want to appease such a system if I were you.

 

As I help my wife research her masters in nursing papers, I'm seeing that nursing in terms of philosophy is actually the superior system as compared to the WM it supports. I never had to cope with "metaparadigms" of patient care when I was a medical student. She also can't wait to get past the WM and get on to the CM.

 

All the Best,

 

Emmanuel Segmen

[Guest guest]

I once brought my wife to Michael Broffman for a consultation about ten

years ago. Through his pulse evaluation and questioning, he was able

to point out powerful issues that needed to be addressed in her

lifestyle. It led to major transformation, including her training to

be a yoga teacher. She also was given an herbal regimen of different

prescriptions three times per day and I performed acupuncture twice a

week.

 

In this context, the acu-moxa treatment and herbal medicine are simply

tools to bring about needed changes in lifestyle, diet, activity,

behavior and emotional balance towards cure. Especially in deep-lying

conditions, these changes will often need to be done.

 

While we don't have to do this with every patient, and we will meet a

lot of resistance, sometimes it is necessary. Otherwise, no drug, herb

or needle will cure. As the Nei Jing teaches, we must live with the

laws of change in order to be healthy.

 

 

 

 

On Friday, March 28, 2003, at 09:07 PM, Emmanuel Segmen wrote:

 

> thanks for the clarity on that point.  You would laugh if you

> knew of my own first contacts with mainstream CM as well as my wife's

> in Fongshon, Taiwan.  My own first contact was Michael Broffman in the

> 1970s who never once gave me acupuncture in many visits.  He only once

> gave me herbs.  All of my visits to his home were spent in 5 element

> theory lessons helping me identify those elements in my life and how

> to balance them.  So for me that's professional mainstream CM.