I practice several styles of acupuncture including the 5 Element, style J.R. Worsley passed on to the founders of TAI Sophia, Japanese, as taught by Kiiko Matsumoto and Steven Burch from their teacher Manaka and the Toyo Hari style, and TCM (“Traditional Chinese Medicine”—what the Chinese created to teach medical skills in a university-style form of education in China after the Cultural Revolution).
About 85% of acupuncture in America is done in the TCM style, which I feel is best for physical injury. 5 Element is more tailored to our culture’s everyday needs, where a lot of illnesses are multi-leveled and a combination of problems due to overwork, stress, lack of or excessive exercise, toxins in the environment, car accidents, etc. Japanese is an excellent form of treatment for when there isn’t the ability for conversation or an interview. This can be helpful for people who don’t speak English fluently, or who have difficulty describing their problems through shyness or lack of ability to assess their own state—for instance children, or those who are mentally ill, or for when there simply isn’t time for discussion.
5 Element
5 Element acupuncture is a gentle style that uses between 1 to 8 needles. The needles are inserted until the Qi sensation is obtained, and then removed immediately. 5 Element style is best suited for illness that is emotionally based or a combination of stress or other mindsets and physical ailments, particularly when one feeds off of another. An example of this would be back pain that is worse with stress, or a tendency to worry that is worse with fatigue. It excels at treating depression, low energy, or emotional states that give a feeling of unease or unhappiness—anything that keeps a person from feeling relaxed and able to enjoy friends and family, co-workers and work, and the environment.
5 Elements refers to Metal, Water, Wood, Fire, and Earth. These elements are inherent in nature and in the mechanics of your body. In nature, they are visible as the seasons, the times of day, etc. In the body they are seen as emotions both harmonious and disharmonious, like compassion or fear, or thought processes and states of being, like feeling angry or having the tendency to be very loyal. I see which element is the “Achilles heel” of a person’s system and use needles at acupuncture points to allow the body to correct the imbalance. Health is the smooth flow of one element into the next: one energetic state naturally gives rise to the next. “Dis-ease” is the erratic flow, or lack of flow, of these energies.
Japanese
The Japanese styles are even more gentle than the 5 Element style, and so they are helpful for people who are nervous about needles or hypersensitive to needling but would still like to receive the benefits of acupuncture. There are also very few needles—3 to 8, and the needles are thinner than in other styles. If a person is very sensitive the needle is simply held at the surface of the body to obtain the Qi and not inserted.
TCM
TCM is very helpful for pain. It can be used to both quickly and permanently reduce pain, and heal injuries that create pain. It is also excellent for the side effects from surgery such as scarring. The needling techniques and Qi sensation obtained range from suble to very strong, and the amount of needles used may range from 8 to 25.
Qi is the energy of your vital force—the battery of the body, mind and spirit. It is both the energetic message system in the body that I seek to understand and diagnose, and the energy I hope to harness or call into action to help your body correct its disharmonies.
If I feel a person could benefit from more than just acupuncture I might recommend dietary or lifestyle changes. If an herbal approach would be helpful I generally diagnose any nutritional deficits through kinesiology muscle testing and recommend the use of Standard Process supplements—supplements that are “whole food” rather than synthetically created in a laboratory. I might also recommend a few simple Western style herbs such as Bach Flower remedies.