27 The Role of the Heart in Needling within the Treatment Process

In the four techniques books I have written since 1996, Holding the Tiger’s Tail, An Acupuncture Techniques Manual in the Treatment of Disease (1996)1, The Art of Palpatory Diagnosis in Oriental Medicine (2001)² (and in Italian, Palpazione Diagnostica in Medicina Orientale [2004])², Chinese Auricular Acupuncture (2004)³, and this text, I have tried to present students and practitioners with clear, accurate, and amazingly effective clinical strategies about treating patients with both Chinese and Japanese medicine.

In addition to writing these books, I have taught most of this material to hundreds of students at the Albuquerque campus of Southwest Acupuncture College (of which I am the Executive Director) for 5 years and the Santa Fe campus for over 17 years. Repeatedly the students have adopted these proven techniques enthusiastically and carefully practiced them on thousands of patients with great success.

As beginners just learning these approaches for the first time in class, their diagnoses could always have been more precise, their point locations more accurate, and their needle techniques more defined, yet the compassion, caring and purity of heart with which the students applied these techniques more than compensated for any lack of technique, for indeed the spirit is more powerful than the physical action.

As presented in my fifth and forthcoming book, The Spiritual Practice of Clinical Medicine, my premise is simple—effective treatment and healing is delivered, more than any other variable, through the loving, compassionate, spirit of the practitioner. Personally, the most effective treatment I have ever received, in any realm of medicine—allopathic, chiropractic, massage or acupuncture—has been when the practitioner was kind, sensitive, and caring. Even if their technique was not that great, or even if they did not do anything apart from listening and offering a thoughtful word in their helplessness or bewilderment, I was surely healed in those simple moments when another human being reached out to me with an open heart. Likewise, the times when indeed I was most injured and suffered incalculably was not with a needle or an herbal formula, a misdiagnosis or a supplement, although all these things did happen, but when someone simply could not open their heart even enough to ask how I was feeling when it was obvious I was ill.

Acupuncture is most effective when it is coordinated with the spirit of the practitioner, in concert with the practitioner distilling the essence of the diagnosis (what one could call the spirit of the patient), and the essence or physiology of the points (or their spirit). Remember, the heart in Chinese medicine pertains to our boundaries, our eyes, our mind, our consciousness, and our spirit, so it encompasses the highest level of our being.

An open heart is part of the “spirit connection” the Huang Di Nei Jing refers to as the essence of healing. As practitioners and human beings, that love expressed in compassion, the willingness to listen, or simply be present, may be the greatest gift we can give one another. Even with technical weaknesses in diagnosis, treatment plans, modalities, point location, and needle technique, healing can still occur when it comes from the heart. This is certainly not to say that all of the components of executing treatment mentioned above are not important, for they surely are, and there is no excuse for never doing the best that we can.

A consistent ethic, which supports life and encourages its existence, is conveyed through your words, your gestures, and your demeanor. Prayer, thought, hope, and touch are all powerful vehicles that impact healing, for they are positive energy that affirms the life force. The integrated body-mind-spirit responds quickly and adeptly to the energy expressed through the heart.

So in your practice, don’t neglect to pay full attention to your patient, to respond genuinely to the fullness of their presence even if it is simply to proffer a tissue or heartfeltly to say, “That must be awful,” or “I am so sorry for your pain.” Don’t let all the paperwork, time constraints, how you feel that day, or anything else, be more important than the patients you are dedicated to treating in this noble profession. When you put on your clinic coat, remind yourself to open your heart at the same time.

References

1. Gardner-Abbate S. Holding the Tiger’s Tail: An Acupuncture Techniques Manual in the Treatment of Disease. Santa Fe: Southwest Acupuncture College Press; 1996.
   
2. Gardner-Abbate S. The Art of Palpatory Diagnosis in Oriental Medicine. London: Churchill Livingstone; 2001. (Also available in Italian as Palpazione Diagnostica in Orientale Medicina [2004].)
   
3. Abbate S. Chinese Auricular Acupuncture. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press; 2004.