Acupuncture: ‘So how does it work then?’
Well I could easily take up every page of this Oracle and I still wouldn’t have begun to answer this question properly, but in good Daoist tradition I shall give it a go. In short the answer is that it depends on who you ask. If you were to ask a sceptic, he would say that its effects are all in the mind or due to the placebo effect. If you were to ask an open minded Doctor she might say that it works by blocking nerve signals or releasing certain endorphins in the brain. If you were to ask a physiotherapist who practices a bit of acupuncture he might say that inserting a needle in to a muscle can relieve it of tension. And if you were to ask me…well I would say ask the ancient Chinese!
I don’t say this to be facetious but I genuinely believe that the Chinese had it all worked out themselves. I have long since stopped trying to explain Eastern medicine from a Western Scientific point of view. Although acupuncture still does stand up to vigorous scientific testing I feel that ultimately it is a futile exercise. For example take the ‘gold standard’ of science, the double blind experiment. For this to apply to acupuncture neither the acupuncturist, nor the acupuncturee, can know whether or not they are giving or receiving real thing. To cater for this they have created ‘sham’ acupuncture, where they use a needle which contracts into the handle a bit like one of those joke shop knives. Sceptics then point to the fact that acupuncture fares little better than sham acupuncture in tests, completely missing the point that an acupuncture point can be stimulated without being pierced!
The Doctors then, who sometimes may learn a bit of acupuncture on a weekend course, may point to the nervous system and their ECG machines, which gives rise to complicated pain gate and endogenous opioid theories. Likewise the physio who can stick a needle in to a muscular knot and get the muscle to release, sometimes instantly, feels that acupuncture is a great way of releasing physical tension.
These are all fine ideas and go a little way in to explaining what the effects of acupuncture are but they don’t really get to the heart of the matter. How for example can it treat anxiety and depression? How can a needle in the little toe turn a breeched baby? How can a needle in your leg help treat Chronic Fatigue? For answers to these questions we must go back to the Chinese medical model and regard it as a system in its own right.
When I first started studying I was sub-consciously seeking external validation. Whether it was from the affiliated University that my college was joined with, or from peer reviewed scientific studies I was concerned with how acupuncture was perceived in the West. However as my practice and confidence began to grow and I successfully treated more and more varied conditions, I began to realise that what I studied was not some quaint analogy but an actual working reality. There are indeed small channels of energy that run around the body that travel deep in to the internal organs. This energy or Chi can then effect various aspects of our physical body, our energy system and our consciousness. Our health is therefore maintained largely by the flow of this subtle energy and acupuncture is a good way of maintaining this flow.
We have a tendency here in the West of looking back with a modern eye and seeing older cultures as primitive ones that are inferior to our own. However in many ways when it comes to energy medicine and matters of the spirit, it is probably us that are the primitive ones.
Chinese medical theory is actually perfectly capable of explaining itself and what’s more, it is perfectly capable of explaining many modern day problems, some of which didn’t even exist back when it was devised. And this is why it never ceases to amaze.