Our Treatment Philosophy

At Classical 5 Elements Acupuncture, we believe that illness and pain offer everyone a challenge and an opportunity. Sometimes treatment is straightforward, based on millennia old prescriptions that almost always work. Sometimes, not. Sometimes it involves a challenge to change how one goes about the business of living. It is a chance to put down the burden of false perception in an existing situation. This can be very difficult to address in the midst of pain when the suffering seems to hungrily consume one's attention. Yet, the challenge is there and the opportunity is golden.

It is our profession to produce wellness, not to cure disease. It is a difference in focus. Our focus is always the patient and the best interests of the patient. The illness which may have brought the patient to our practice is secondary.

In this practice, we seek to relieve or eliminate suffering by encouraging mind and body to heal in unison. In our opinion it is inappropriate and, well, simply unhealthy to view most bodily ills as villains which must be confronted and fought. The attitudes and implements of war are not appropriate to fix a flat tire. Nor, are these the proper tools to use to fix a ailing person. Anyone who has experienced war knows that it is often very difficult to tell the victor from the vanquished.

We do not by any means belittle the many accomplishments of modern western medicine or wish to minimize the dangers of life threatening illness. However, acupuncture and its related disciplines have been proven to offer effective alternative and adjunctive treatments. for many, many conditions without the drama that seems to be integral to most western approaches to treatment.

Often the first step in healing is to relax, to take those energies which are pushing our bodies to manufacture the adrenaline and other substances necessary for a physical confrontation and put them to better use. Acupuncture and its related healing modalities, such as massage, herbal medicine, and meditation. encourage the correct energy flow to create a proper mind-body balance. This in turn alters the client's physiological functions in the ways needed for a return to wellness.

Classical Chinese medicine is built on the assumption that an intimate reciprocal interrelationship between body and mind exists. Every thought has a physical consequence, sometimes small, sometimes large. Every bodily action shapes the mind; our physical habits become the framework of our thoughts. The Chinese medical system believes that any excessive emotional state can injure specific internal organs. For example, anger and resentment may injure the liver. Conversely, a disorder of the liver may generate irritability and a tendency to become easily angered. A weakness of the kidneys may cause someone to be fearful, while chronic fear may injury the kidneys. In this system the internal organs and combinations of the organic systems correspond with different emotional states.

Modern western medical science regards these beliefs as superstitious claptrap. It also, albeit reluctantly, acknowledges that many of the treatments that result from this "mumbo jumbo" are provably effective, often far more so than "conventional, scientific" therapies.

In addition, acupuncture treatment is less likely to cause undesired side effects than virtually every other kind of medical treatment. This is scientific fact.

Patient oriented healers of every medical discipline acknowledge the above and take advantage of these acupuncture in the quest for solutions to their patients difficulties.

We work with the body's energy system, using the centuries old tools that have withstood scientific scrutiny for the past sixty years; and encourage mind and body to move together towards wellness.