Guest guest Posted November 25, 2003 Report Share Posted November 25, 2003 <<I once shared an office for a year or more with a very incompletely trained naturopath who got great results from her acupuncture because of her immense confidence even when she was all wrong according to standard Chinese teachings and practices. I constantly used to shake my head in disbelief at our staff meetings and case presentations, but she got exceptionally good results. [bob]>> Bob, Given some of your earlier comments, it's helpful when you provide specific example to illustrate your points about what may or may not make acupuncture effective. I've come across the contradictory opinions about the effect of needling clockwise or anticlockwise before, and this does suggest that intention or indeed something else is an important factor. In the case of the naturopath, I'd be interested to know whether you actually judged that she was administering incorrect treatment that should have made the person worse from your own theoretical perspective, or whether she simply employed sub-optimal treatment. Her confidence or something else about her may have been the crucial issue, but then, I wonder if possibly the technical aspects of point selection may have contributed to results. For example, if a relatively poorly trained practitioner restricted herself to 10 major acupuncture points (e.g. LI4, LIV3, ST36, P6, etc.), it could be that those points have quite powerful normalising effects that could account for a high rate of clinical success, even though such treatments could appear to be quite crude and simplistic. And needling technique may not be such an important issue, as your example about direction of rotation suggests. Wainwright Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 25, 2003 Report Share Posted November 25, 2003 Wainwright, > Given some of your earlier comments, it's helpful when you provide specific example to illustrate your points about what may or may not make acupuncture effective. I've said this all before on this list. I forget that either people have not read everything I've said or are newer to the list. > In the case of the naturopath, I'd be interested to know whether you > actually judged that she was administering incorrect treatment that > should have made the person worse from your own theoretical > perspective, or whether she simply employed sub-optimal treatment. > Her confidence or something else about her may have been the crucial > issue, but then, I wonder if possibly the technical aspects of point > selection may have contributed to results. Good points. For example, if a relatively poorly trained practitioner restricted herself to 10 major > acupuncture points (e.g. LI4, LIV3, ST36, P6, etc.), it could be that > those points have quite powerful normalising effects that could > account for a high rate of clinical success, even though such > treatments could appear to be quite crude and simplistic. And > needling technique may not be such an important issue, as your > example about direction of rotation suggests. Unfortunately, this way years and years ago. But, as I remember it, she did things that I thought were simply wrong and should've either resulted in no effect or a negative effect. As for her repertoire of points, I don't remember that. It was mostly her pattern discrimination and then her point selection based on that discrimination -- both of which were frequently wrong. So, does two wrongs make a right in acupuncture? Hmmm. Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 25, 2003 Report Share Posted November 25, 2003 Bob Thanks for your thorough reply. I'll keep your observations in mind as I continue my work here. We both agree that something is going on and, for now, I'm still convinced that theory is the best way to create teaching models for acupuncture training and thus for ensuring that patients get resuls. As you explained rather clearly, proof in the case of meridians/acupuncture is a difficult concept. I'm going to leave that in the hands of those dedicated to that line of inquiry. We all know that the field is big enough to allow for many different types of research and my interest is in researching classical Chinese concepts and bringing them as clearly as possible to modern non-Chinese speakers. That should keep me busy for awhile. Thanks again for your time Jason Robertson Jason Robertson, L.Ac. Ju Er Hu Tong 19 Hao Yuan 223 Shi Beijing, Peoples Republic of China home-86-010-8405-0531 cell- 86-010-13520155800 Free Pop-Up Blocker - Get it now Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 26, 2003 Report Share Posted November 26, 2003 Jason, Personally, I'm not interested in pursuing that line of research myself. I was only trying to make a certain point in order to help keep people's minds open. Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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