Empower Yourself to Create the Life You Want

One of the main differences between 5 element and TCM is diagnosing and treating the level of your patients’ dis-ease.

In 5e, it’s crucial for the practitioner to ascertain on which level – body, mind, or spirit – their patient’s discomfort is primarily located during every treatment.

Here’s how and why we need to diagnose level for our patients to get the best treatment outcomes.

One of the biggest questions I get from practitioners is if they can integrate the 5 elements and TCM into their diagnostic and treatment process.

Yes you definitely can, and it’s easier than you might think.

Let’s dive into why you can integrate them so smoothly, how you might integrate them, and the main benefits of doing so.

As practitioners, we know that our role is to help our patients heal. 

What many of us often overlook is how our own health and internal balance contributes to our patients’ progress.

The 5 elements are an excellent tool to help you understand your patients, but also to increase your insight into yourself.

Here’s how knowing your own elements as a practitioner can enhance your clinical abilities and lead to happier, healthier patients. 

The 5 elements represent an essential but often overlooked aspect of our health.

When I started integrating them into my treatments, the difference was substantial for my patients compared to just treating them with TCM.

I also started receiving 5 element treatments for myself and the shifts I felt internally and saw externally were profound.

We all want the best for our patients and the 5 elements are an accessible way to help people transform their health. 

Here are the top 3 benefits for my patients that I’ve noticed since incorporating the 5 elements in my practice.

Discovering your patients’ constitution is a core part of the diagnostic process in 5 element acupuncture. 

Without that knowledge your ability to personalize your treatments decreases and your patients won’t get the same results.

This process of constitutional diagnosis is unique to 5 element acupuncture; TCM, the dominant form of Chinese medicine in the US, does not use constitutions in its diagnosis and treatment process.

So let’s dive into what a constitution is, how it’s formed, how our constitutions affect us, and why it’s so important to treat at a constitutional level for your patients.

Traditional healing systems from around the world incorporate constitutional medicine into their theory and practice.

Great examples are the three doshas of Ayurvedic (traditional Indian) medicine, the 4 humors of Hippocratic medicine, and constitutional homeopathy.

Chinese medicine has its own constitutional medicine system in the 5 elements which helps practitioners to see the whole person and get to the root cause of health issues more effectively.

Learning about the 5 elements literally changed my life when I was in acupuncture school, no exaggeration.

I’ve always been a personality nerd – I love to understand what makes people tick.

I was so surprised and excited to learn that Chinese medicine not only had its own personality type system in the 5 elements but also that the elements are really a comprehensive and holistic way to understand the body, mind, and spirit together.

Let’s demystify the elements and the role they play in your health, relationships, personality, and life!