Anthony campbell acupuncture and massage
The Origins of Acupuncture
Related papers
Marcelo Saad
Acupuncture - Resolving Old Controversies and Pointing New Pathways, 2019
This is a short chapter, with intention to be introductory for the nature and purpose of the book subject matter, as well as the significance of its contents for the readers. The field of acupuncture as a scientifically accepted therapy in the West is constantly evolving. All proponents of acupuncture are well convinced of the value of this therapy, and they are quite satisfied with the current documentation regarding its safety, efficiency, effectiveness, and cost-benefit ratio [1]. However, there are still many gaps on this knowledge, equally evidenced in the scholar literature. Very often, proponents of acupuncture have to justify all over again and again their point to the academic-scientific community, since critics are always remembering the flaws. This duality looks like the antagonism in a board game, represented by the clash between the positive and negative aspects of the technique. In this analogy, the pieces of both sides are in a continuous struggle between the forces strengthening the validity of acupuncture and the movements reducing its legitimacy (Figure 1). The positive aspects include everything science recognizes and endorses objectively, added to everything the patients who use the technique feel subjectively. The negative aspects include everything acupuncture is objectively owing to science while researches do not provide all the answers, added to everything subjectively derived from prejudice and ignorance against this technique. Following this analogy, the new pathways are represented by the strategies the proponents of acupuncture will use to strengthen their arguments and weaken the detractors' arguments, to advance beyond this standoff. This chapter will put the reader on the position of a player interested on the acupuncture advan
So You Want To Try Acupuncture?
This book aims to answer the questions that someone who is thinking of having acupuncture but doesn't know much about it might ask. At the outset, it explains that if you want to have acupuncture you don't necessarily have to take on board a lot of strange ideas. That is because there are now many health professionals (doctors, dentists, nurses, physiotherapists, osteopaths, and chiropractors, for example) who use acupuncture in a modern way with little or no reference to the ancient ideas of yin and yang, meridians, and points. They have reinterpreted acupuncture in the light of modern science and find that it works. We don't need the traditional theories to explain it.
Doing acupuncture in the modern way is as effective as doing it in the traditional way, so it is what I recommend. At the same time, I know that there will be some people who, for one reason or another, will be drawn towards the traditional version, and I cater for those as well.
The book explains what acupuncture is, how it seems to work, how you should go about finding a practitioner, what to expect in your first treatment, and what adverse effects might occur. It also describes the main health problems that might be suitable for acupuncture.
The book is based on over thirty years' experience of using and teaching acupuncture.
Acupuncture, Touch, and the Placebo Response
Anthony Campbell
Reprinted from Acupuncture, touch, and the placebo response; 8(1):43-46, March 2000, Complementary Therapies in Medicine, by permission of the publisher, Churchill Livingstone. Users may not print out or otherwise reproduce copies of the material without the written permission of the copyright holderAcupuncture practitioners who subscribe to the modern or non-traditional version of the therapy maintain that what they do is scientific, in the sense that it is founded on what mainstream science knows about the nervous system and other physiological systems[1]. Moreover, they can point to a modest but not insignificant body of research to support their claim, and there are plausible physiological mechanisms that may explain at least some of the observed phenomena[2]. And yet, if you talk to such practitioners, you quickly get the impression that they regard what they do as an art as well as a science. This is true of all of medicine, of course, but it is especially true of manual techniques such as acupuncture; most practitioners think that the skill with which the treatment is applied makes a lot of difference to the outcome.
Admittedly there are a few who don't share this attitude. A consultant neurologist who used acupuncture told me that he found the actual needling of patients boring and therefore deputed it to physiotherapists. However, this view is not widely held. Indeed, quite a number of acupuncturists, not necessarily adherents of the traditional system, can be induced to admit that they feel as if "something" were being transmitted via the needle to the patient, although they generally disavow, in the next breath, any suggestion of a mysterious or paranormal "life force". It is the nature of this "something" that I want to explore. My hope is that this can be done without plunging us into irrationality. The clue, I suggest, is to be found in the quality of touch.
Touch as a form Acupuncture In Practice by Anthony Campbell
Citation preview
Butterworth-Heinemann An imprint of Elsevier Science Limited Robert Stevenson House 1–3 Baxter’s Place Leith Walk Edinburgh EH1 3AF © Anthony Campbell 2001 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without either the prior permission of the publishers or a licence permitting restricted copying in the United Kingdom issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Permissions may be sought directly from Elsevier’s Health Sciences Rights Department in Philadelphia, USA: phone: (+1) 215 238 7869, fax: (+1) 215 238 2239, e-mail: [email protected]. You may also complete your request on-line via the Elsevier Science homepage (http://www.elsevier.com), by selecting ‘Customer Support’ and then ‘Obtaining Permissions’.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Campbell, Anthony, 1933– Acupuncture in practice: beyond points and meridians 1. Acupuncture I Title 615.8⬘92 ISBN 0 7506 5242 X
Composition by Genesis Typesetting, Laser Quay, Rochester, Kent Printed and bound in Great Britain by Biddles Ltd, Guildford and King’s Lynn
Acknowledgements
I should like to thank Heidi Allen, Robert Edwards, Jackie Holding, and the rest of the team at Butterworth-Heinemann for the care and interest they have taken in the production of this book.
Foreword
Acupuncture is full of controversies, and none is greater than the fundamental approach we should adopt. On the one hand, the traditional practice of acupuncture has evolved over many centuries of clinical observation and been passed down by respected masters to grateful apprentices. Supporters of the traditional approach argue that its concepts of energy flow operate as a knowledge system in its own right which should not be rejected just because it does
Acupuncture In Practice by Anthony Campbell
Citation preview
Butterworth-Heinemann An imprint of Elsevier Science Limited Robert Stevenson House 1–3 Baxter’s Place Leith Walk Edinburgh EH1 3AF © Anthony Campbell 2001 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without either the prior permission of the publishers or a licence permitting restricted copying in the United Kingdom issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Permissions may be sought directly from Elsevier’s Health Sciences Rights Department in Philadelphia, USA: phone: (+1) 215 238 7869, fax: (+1) 215 238 2239, e-mail: [email protected]. You may also complete your request on-line via the Elsevier Science homepage (http://www.elsevier.com), by selecting ‘Customer Support’ and then ‘Obtaining Permissions’.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Campbell, Anthony, 1933– Acupuncture in practice: beyond points and meridians 1. Acupuncture I Title 615.8⬘92 ISBN 0 7506 5242 X
Composition by Genesis Typesetting, Laser Quay, Rochester, Kent Printed and bound in Great Britain by Biddles Ltd, Guildford and King’s Lynn
Acknowledgements
I should like to thank Heidi Allen, Robert Edwards, Jackie Holding, and the rest of the team at Butterworth-Heinemann for the care and interest they have taken in the production of this book.
Foreword
Acupuncture is full of controversies, and none is greater than the fundamental approach we should adopt. On the one hand, the traditional practice of acupuncture has evolved over many centuries of clinical observation and been passed down by respected masters to grateful apprentices. Supporters of the traditional approach argue that its concepts of energy flow operate as a knowledge system in its own right which should not be rejected just because it does