Traditional Chinese Medicine

As I learned more and more about different forms of healing other than western medicine, I became fascinated with the idea of qi, meridians, and the interactions between the different elements in traditional chinese medicine. Although I wanted to try acupuncture, because this seemed to be the most interesting way to go about finding out more about this form of healing I started talking to a massage therapist, who has been a good family friend for some time,who also showed great interest in the ideologies behind traditional chinese medicine.

This woman’s name was Jan (blank). Jan didn’t have her own office, but decided early on to go to her patients houses, or where ever they were staying at the time, because that proved to be the most comfortable environment for a majority of her clients. Jan showed up at the house where she brought a heat blanket, table, headrest, pillow, and towel. After setting up her equipment I asked jan a few questions to get a better understanding of her background and perspective on massage therapy. She explained that she had been friends with many soldiers as she was in college around the time of the vietnam war, and so had tons of friends who were dating men in the military. When her friends boyfriends came over she would give them short messages just to relax them a little bit, but never really thought anything of it. Jan went to school for social work and became a social worker in the bronx.

One weekend Jan had to go on a mandatory retreat for the social workers in her department to maintain optimal wellness, physically and emotionally. While there she took part in meditation and went to talks on acupuncture and massage therapy. When jan came back to the retreat, she could not stop thinking abou...

... middle of paper ...

...ly if they don’t have it. incorporating it into health care would help people lower their risks for problems down the line. She explained that if insurance coverage would pay to a certain extent for treatment, people would be in balance more often, which would lower their risks for many problems down the road.

Getting a massage with jan, and learning even more about traditional chinese medicine has motivated me to seek out other forms of traditional chinese forms of healing such as reflexology, acupuncture and a more structured form of meditation. Jan explained that life is all about balance, and even in western medicine, when balance is off problems form. It has made me think even more about how out of balance people are, and how much commitment it takes to be in constant balance especially with the large amount of technology, and poor diets in today’s society.