What is it?
Acupuncture is the insertion of fine needles through the skin and into the underlying muscle to achieve a therapeutic effect. It developed in China as a treatment over a period of thousands of years, and is now used extensively also in the West.
What kind of acupuncture?
There are various styles of acupuncture. There is a standard, taught in most acupuncture schools, which is based on several important traditional Chinese texts. It was only actually standardised in the 1950s however. The reality in rural China is for each local acupuncturist to use the particular method and techniques that have been passed down in family lineages, more or less loosely based on the wider corpus of traditional medical theory. Then there are regional variations, for example in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. In the West, some practitioners do not use traditional methods of acupuncture at all, but other methods that have been developed from our scientific understanding of anatomy and physiology.
I studied «traditional» Chinese acupuncture, in which I qualified in 1990. I was mentored and deeply influenced by my father-in-law Gianfranco Miotto, a well-respected and highly experienced acupuncturist in the Venice area. Through his formative contact with Korean practitioners in South America, and his own intelligence and experience, he had developed his own interpretation of the traditional methods. A later influence of mine were the radical ideas developed by the renowned British acupuncturist Dr Felix Mann in his later life, as expounded in his controversial book, «Reinventing Acupuncture». More recently I have become interested in a method called «Balance Acupuncture», derived from ancient Chinese texts, which concords well with some ideas which I had myself been developing. It is particularly well-suited to treating painful conditions and has become my main approach to these problems. Finally, I have a scientific background and a rational mind, and these cannot but inform my style of practice.
In short, each acupuncturist has to make the art his own. As with most experienced practitioners, I have over the years developed my own particular way of working from various influences together with my personal experience and reflections.
What can be treated?
I apply three general conditions to selecting cases to be treated with acupuncture:
- The disorder and/or symptoms are largely functional. That means that serious disease is not responsible for the symptoms.
- I prefer there to be some reasonably convincing scientific evidence that acupuncture is effective in similar cases.
- There is no better way of treating the problem that is acceptable to the client.
Except the last, these are not absolute rules, but preferable conditions. Sometimes (though not usually) circumstances or intuition can override them.
My special interests are the treatment of painful conditions of all kinds, anxiety, mood disturbances and related disorders, neurological symptoms and gynaecological issues such as PMS and disturbances of the menstrual cycle.
Does it hurt?
A tiny bit, not very much, and the results are generally worth the small amount of discomfort.
How many treatments?
It depends on how complex and long-standing is the condition. A simple, recent condition can often be resolved in 2 to 4 treatments. More complex or long-standing conditions may need up to 12 weekly or twice weekly treatments initially, with a second course of treatments after a pause.
Chinese Herbal Medicine
Acupuncture is sometimes used together with Chinese Herbal Medicine. Read about this area of my practice at YinYangHerb.com.
Robert Hale 