Often when people come in for acupuncture, they want to know why I choose certain points on their body to needle. Are they specific to what they have? Does everyone get the same pointes? Does each point do something in particular by itself? Do the points work together in combination? and so on. It’s a big question, but one that I hear, appreciate, and try to answer simply. When I was in school for Chinese medicine, we would be hard pressed to answer those questions at the end of the first year, let alone after one or two classes. 

One reason for this is that the whole approach to the body– it’s systems, how they interact with thought, emotions, and spirit, how they are affected by the environment, diet, and movement–is from a different standpoint of allopathic (western) medicine. All schools of medicine are about defining the body and its systems, how they interact and perform, and how we can help them move from pathology to health. Medicines the world over have the same goal, but they have different approaches. Often when a person knows one system and they look at another system, they try to make sense of it in the same way. Even well-trained MDs have been know to scrunch up their noses and sneer when hearing someone talk about acupuncture. In their innocent ignorance, they just don’t know where to put it in their system so it makes their heads spin a bit.

You don’t have to know how acupuncture works for it to work for you. I need to know, but you don’t. Acupuncture works with your body and sends it messages to do what it does best–heal you. Acupuncture doesn’t heal you, you heal you. Acupuncture stimulates your healing responses. Consciously, you don’t have to know what the points do, how they work in combination, or why I choose some one day and others on another day. The needles are going to stimulate your healing response, and hopefully that will move you closer to the healthy normal that you’re seeking. 

That said, it’s great to have curiosity how and why acupuncture works. And acupuncture is only one aspect of Chinese medicine, it is one type of therapy. We also use therapeutic massage (Tuina), Chinese herbal formulas (poly pharmacy), diet, exercise, and lifestyle advice to help you move towards your healthiest state of being. But it’s not a small task to understand only because it’s another paradigm of looking at the body. And before you can understand acupuncture, you need to have a sense of that paradigm. To that end, I want to recommend a couple books that have been around a long time that you can usually get used for quite a deal. Working through a book and learning about how Chinese medicine looks at our whole system of being can be mind-opening, entertaining, and informative. You don’t need to read a book to have acupuncture help you, but you can read one to learn more about it. 

One of the first books written (1983) for the western public on traditional Chinese medicine was Ted Kaptchuk’s The Web That Has No Weaver. This is a beautifully written book, very poetic at times, and quite informative. None of the books that I am mentioning are dumbed down versions of other texts, they are challenging at times and still very useful to practitioners like myself. Because this has been around so long, you can often find it in used book stores online or on a shelf somewhere if you’re lucky. It doesn’t have a lot of pictures, it’s not focused much on acupuncture but more on the foundations of traditional Chinese medicine. I highly recommend it if you have the interest. 

The second mass produced paperback (1991) on Chinese medicine was written by Harriet Beinfield and Efrem Korngold Between Heaven and Earth: A Guide to Chinese Medicine. Covering similar topics as The Web That Has No Weaver but with greater description, more pictures and charts, and a deeper dive into many aspects of the foundations and practice of the medicine. Like the other book, this has been around and can be found used many places. It is a great introduction to the medicine as a whole, and quite readable. 

More comprehensive texts are much more expensive, and if you are interested, you can always ask me for recommendations, but I haven’t found many people to be interested in our larger tomes on the medicine. For a quick overview of the meridians and the points lying along them, there are many online resources. They do not go into the functions of the points per se, or of how we use them in combination, but you can find a good map. Here is one PDF of acupuncture meridians and points that is clear enough to get a sense of where along the body the meridian pathways lie. 

So please, feel free to ask me about the points we use when you come in for your acupuncture treatment, but also realize that I need to give very short answers as the topic is wide, deep, and comprehensive. If you’re really interested, give one of the above books a read and that will bolster your understanding immensely, and I can clarify any questions you do have when you see me. The reason many of us get into Chinese medicine and acupuncture is that it is fun, interesting, and a totally different view of our bodies in our world. It doesn’t contradict allopathic medicine, it provides an alternative way of looking at things. A way that I find quite organic, holistic, and in tune with the world we live in.