About Five Element Acupuncture

According to Chinese philosophy, all things are manifestations of the dao - the eternal, the infinite, which breaks apart into two opposing and complementary forces known as yin and yang. These are the inside and outside of everything, the pairing of all opposites, and they divide further into five phases known as the five elements. These are given the names Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water.

Each element creates the different organs of our body and, in nature, the seasons of the year. They also create the deeper levels within us, those of our soul. They are the phases through which all things pass from their beginning to their end.

Each branch of acupuncture has its own approach to diagnosis. In five element acupuncture, diagnosis is based upon an understanding that each one of us has a particular relationship with one element, our constitutional or guardian element. This element gives our life a certain emphasis, making some of us more serious or light-hearted, others more determined or anxious. It is this element which takes the brunt of the stress we are suffering, revealing its unease through physical and emotional signs of imbalance.

Throughout the ages, individual masters of acupuncture developed their own styles of treatment, constantly adding new ideas to the body of knowledge built up in this way. Today there are therefore numerous schools of acupuncture in many countries, East and West, all following their own traditions based on the original Chinese texts but with wide variations as to how these texts are interpreted and with much new material introduced over the centuries.

Amongst the main traditions being practised today is five element acupuncture. Its lineage claims as its ancestors many masters of this predominantly oral tradition and it found its way to the Western world by virtue of pioneering Europeans such as Jacques Lavier, Soulie de Morant and J R Worsley.