Here’s something that many people don’t know about how acupuncture points actually work:
Acupoints are ingredients in a dish, and just as one ingredient on its own does not make a meal, it’s the specific combination of points that creates the treatment.
Consider the wide use of mint: we eat it in chocolate, brew it into tea, add it to chutneys & dressings, and even put it in our toothpaste.
Its appearance in a dessert, beverage, savory dish, or hygiene product is entirely determined by whatever else we combine it with. Its purpose, function, and flavour completely change based on the other ingredients (the other points used).
Herbs, Systems, and Culture
This same principle applies to herbal medicine. Western herbal medicine typically focuses on a single herb, while Chinese pharmacology understands herbs as part of a formula, acting in a completely different manner depending on the other herbs alongside it.
Think of it like people: you are always you, but you act differently with your parents than with your friends, lovers, or strangers. The magic is in the other — other people pull something different from the archive of your being. Combining herbs may create a synergistic function, emphasize an aspect already present, or mitigate an undesirable side effect.
This difference in philosophy stems from the fundamental difference between Western and Eastern mindset. In the West, individualism is championed, while in the East, the collective is valued. There are benefits and limitations to both.
Western individualism bred isolationism, which when applied to the field of medicine allows us to isolate active ingredients and create life-saving emergency medicine. But the cost comes at the fragmentation of the whole — everything is separated, and integration becomes necessary. Ironically, this philosophy of individualism created standardized + homogenized medicine, diet, and education.
Eastern collectivism is naturally more holistic, able to recognize patterns and nuance. Chinese Medicine is a medicine of relation — everything is understood in relation to something else. When we talk about the Liver, our understanding changes based on if we are considering it as menstrual Blood storage, as the organ of Spring, as the Yin Wood organ, in terms of Jue Yin, or as the resting place of the Hun spirit. The underlying assumption is that everything in existence is defined by its relationship to something else — the borders that we bump up against become what define us. By understanding everything as unique patterns, Chinese Medicine lends itself more easily to ‘customized’ care, treating the individual patient rather than the same disease — instead of Advil for every headache, we assess for the unique pattern of headache and treat accordingly.
“It is more important to know what sort of person has a disease than to know what sort of disease a person has.” Hippocrates
This is not to knock Western medicine or philosophy — I’m using the relationship between Western and Eastern medicines and philosophies to expand our understanding and appreciation of both. See, understanding things in the context of relation, in action!
Trauma and Chinese Medicine
Turning our attention back to points: in a case of deep emotional trauma that won’t budge, we can employ the Internal Dragons treatment. It consists of seven points — six points on the Stomach meridian, and one point on the Ren meridian, found just between the Stomach and Heart. So, we find that all points in this treatment are related to digestion by either function or location.
Any of these same points might be used in a more mundane treatment, focused on complaints such as gut issues, heartburn, or digestive imbalances. But when they are combined together in this specific protocol, the deeper treatment function of processing stored trauma becomes activated.
The fact that these points are all related to digestion reveals an important nuance in the Chinese Medicine perspective on healing & integrating trauma: trauma is not necessarily something that needs to be purged, but rather something that needs to be digested, so that we can integrate the lessons and eliminate the parts that are toxic or no longer useful.
The Internal Dragons treatment helps the body literally and energetically digest the emotional experiences stuck in the body.
Like stars in the sky linked into constellations, acupuncture points can be mapped out in a treatment to highlight the innate pathways of healing & transformation encoded in the body.
Bringing it back to the magic of relationship: humans are designed to be interdependent, and sometimes we just need another ingredient, herb, point, or person to help locate ourselves in the vastness of existence.