Five-Element Therapy

Before imbalances became pain or other symptoms, they occurred on an emotional and spiritual plane, a place where the individual was unable to tell their story to the tribe or community of which they are a part. In Five-Element work, we look at each patient as a part of nature, reflecting twelve organs in a kingdom and five elements in one cycle of qi.

Each element corresponds to an organ, a sense, a color, a sound, a smell, an emotion: essentially a movement of qi. This is the organizing force of yin and yang in the universe from which acupuncture makes diagnosis and treats chronic long-standing symptoms and dis-ease.

In conversation, we look at all these things together. One indicates another as part of a fractal whole on a continuum. We can gauge where there is more movement in one, and more stuckness in another. An acupuncture needle moves this in a directed way, as well as the right choice of words and presence to a patient, and sometimes both.

Every person has one or two elements in their constitution that are the most strong and augment the most qi. This is seen as an area where they have their greatest strength and weakness. It is the constitutional factor (cf) that they are born with, or that is put into play after a pivotal event in their childhood or young adult life.

Learning to harness the power of these elements and find balance in them is something we do through mindfulness and presence in acupuncture sessions as well as through virtual or in-person consultations.

It is a way of looking at life and existing in nature as whole. It is deeper than Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) because each movement in nature has a function towards the rest, so focusing on one or two of these movement of qi, and where this life-giving qi shows up in your life will augment deeper, more natural, and even more actionable results. It is not Integrated Family Systems (IFS), a well known branch of therapy in the healing of PTSD, although it comes from a similar theory that all parts of us interact as roles within a family unit or kingdom. Different organs have different purposes and roles in the body that are necessary to function in balance for health and vitality of the entire body with the Emperor sitting on the throne of the Heart, the Liver as the acting General carrying out the commands of the kingdom, the Lung the Minister and religious advisor, etc.

In Five-Element consultation and therapy we go through a checklist of your strengths, weaknesses and concerns, and are able to find the element or two in question that need support. Then we look at foods, lifestyle, and coaching strategies to help bring these into more fruition for an overall sense of peace and well being in your life. This results in a more thorough treatment, a deeper awareness of the self as a moment-by-moment sense of the body and its needs. These are the foundational tools needed to create much longer standing results: healing of a lifetime.