Acupuncture is perhaps the most visible and well known form of traditional Chinese medicine to the west. The image of a patient stuffed full of needles is an intriguing one, and people are often curious to know how anyone could believe that illnesses and injuries could be treated with such a curious practice. However, as any trained acupuncture practitioner knows, the placement of the needles is not random, but is rather based on thousands of years of theory that forms the basis for the entire tradition of ancient Chinese medicine.
There has been a huge upsurge in alternative therapies in the west in recent years. Part of this is undoubtedly due to the skyrocketing cost of health care. However, there is also a deeper, more subtle reason for this new interest. Many feel that the west has lost touch with the spiritual dimension of life, and the deconstructionist theories of modern medicine are one of the best examples of this. Traditional Chinese medicine and other holistic therapies are becoming popular as a means of restoring what many view as a lost sense of balance to western society.
While the reasons for the interest in acupuncture and other forms of holistic therapy are easy to understand, the real question of whether or not acupuncture and other types of traditional Chinese medicine are effective in a medical sense remains at issue. Many claim that any improvement in a condition treated by acupuncture is actually due to the body's natural healing abilities possibly combined with a placebo effect.
Numerous scientific studies have attempted to determine whether or not acupuncture is effective in treating diseases and injuries. The results of these studies have been mixed, and the other side often blames the results on preconceived ideas held by the experimenters.
The reason for this sharp conflict between acupuncture and traditional western medicine is based on the fact that the two traditions have entirely different theoretical underpinnings. Western medicine views the body as a massively complex machine. As such, the body is composed of component parts that must work together in order to function properly. In this view, diseases can be isolated to certain body components and treated at the component level. In other words, if one experiences kidney failure, then the kidneys should be treated. Likewise, those who are having trouble with their eyes should have their eyes treated. This is so obvious to someone who has grown up in a western culture that any suggestion otherwise seems silly. Nevertheless, the traditional Chinese view of the body is quite different. Traditional Chinese medicine views the body as an emergent phenomenon greater than the sum of its parts. Disorders are caused by blockages or imbalances in energy flow. Therefore, treatments need not be localized at the point of disorder--rather they should be located at the point of the blockage causing the disorder.
It seems unlikely that eastern and western medical traditions are going to find common ground in the near term. Nevertheless, acupuncture is growing in popularity and seems to be here to stay.
