Acupuncture For Body 1 10
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mamun31ACUPUNCTURE
for Body, Mind and Spirit
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How To Books
Spring Hill House, Spring Hill Road,
Begbroke, Oxford OX5 1RX, United Kingdom
www.howtobooks.co.uk
ACUPUNCTURE
for Body, Mind and Spirit
Peter Mole
howtobooks
Published by How To Content,
A division of How To Books Ltd,
Spring Hill House, Spring Hill Road,
Begbroke, Oxford OX5 1RX, United Kingdom
Tel: (01865) 375794 Fax: (01865) 379162
[email protected]
www.howtobooks.co.uk
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or stored in an
information retrieval system (other than for purposes of review) without the
express permission of the publisher in writing.
The right of Peter Mole to be identified as author of this work has been asserted
by him in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.
2007 Peter Mole
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from
the British Library.
First published 2007
First published in electronic form 2008
ISBN: 978 1 84803 211 8
Cover design by Baseline Arts Ltd
Produced for Spring Hill Books by Deer Park Productions, Tavistock
Typeset by specialist publishing services ltd, Montgomery
CONTENTS
Preface ix
1 What is traditional acupuncture?
How is it different from Western medicine? 1
A holistic therapy 3
The principles of restoring health through
acupuncture 7
A form of preventive medicine 9
What is the acupuncturists view of health? 12
What is qi? 13
How does an acupuncturist treat someones qi? 16
What do acupuncturists mean by body/mind/
spirit? 20
The emotions 24
2 The philosophical basis of Chinese medicine.
The dao, yin/yang and the Five Elements 26
The dao 26
Yin/yang 29
How does the theory of yin/yang apply to
acupuncture? 31
The four varieties of yin/yang imbalance 34
The Five Elements 35
v
Acupuncture for body, mind and spirit
3 The Twelve Organs and channels 49
The Organs of the wood element 52
The Organs of the fire element 55
The Organs of the earth element 63
The Organs of the metal element 66
The Organs of the water element 69
The curious Organs 73
4 The causes of disease 74
The external causes of disease 76
Four kinds of pain 80
Miscellaneous causes 82
The internal causes of disease 83
Conclusion 92
5 How does an acupuncturist make a diagnosis
and decide on a treatment? 94
Pulses 96
Tongue 99
Spirit 101
Emotion 102
Colour 103
Sound 104
Odour 104
Taste 105
Season 106
Climate 106
Symptoms 107
vi
Contents
Twenty-four hour cycle of qi 108
Touch 111
How does the acupuncturist plan a course
of treatment? 112
6 What should I expect from acupuncture
treatment? 113
Would acupuncture be suitable for me? 113
What if I am already receiving treatment for my
condition? 115
What actually happens when I visit an
acupuncturist? 115
Will acupuncture help me only if I believe in it? 124
How long will a course of treatment last? 124
Will I feel different immediately after a
treatment? 125
Can acupuncture be used on small children? 126
Can acupuncture be used on animals? 126
Can I have acupuncture analgesia for a surgical
operation? 127
Can acupuncture be used during pregnancy? 129
Can acupuncture be used during childbirth? 129
Can acupuncture help me give up tobacco,
alcohol, drugs or over-eating? 130
Can acupuncture help me lose weight? 132
Can acupuncture help me look younger? 132
How can I train to be an acupuncture practitioner? 133
How can I find a well-qualified traditional
acupuncturist? 134
vii
Acupuncture for body, mind and spirit
7 Acupuncture: past, present and future 137
The impact of the West on Chinese medicine 139
The impact of Western medicine upon Chinese
medicine 142
Research into acupuncture 143
Is acupuncture a science or an art? 146
The future of Chinese medicine in the West 147
Appendix A 151
Appendix B 153
Index 164
viii
Preface
This book is intended to be a source of information on the
subject of acupuncture to patients, prospective patients,
prospective students and lay-people in general. It is not
intended to be a sort of home doctor that the reader can
consult in order to make an acupuncture diagnosis of her own
or others symptoms. One of the intentions of the book is to
show that acupuncture has a complex and intricate diagnostic
method which takes a practitioner many years in which to
become adept. If the book serves to show that acupuncture
offers a radically different approach to Western medicine and
that symptoms can rarely be seen out of context of the person
as a whole, then it will have gone some way to fulfilling its
purpose.
This edition is a revised version of a book I wrote in 1991,
called Acupuncture: Energy Balancing for Body, Mind and
Spirit. The first publisher went bankrupt and the second lost
interest in its Complementary Medicine catalogue. I am
greatly indebted to How To Books for this edition.
I decided to resolve the problem of whether to use the
masculine or feminine pronoun throughout the book by using
them alternately in each chapter. Unfortunately the book has
seven chapters and, decided by the toss of a coin, this has
meant that the masculine pronoun has been used in one more
chapter than the feminine.
ix
