Far Eastern medicine is exerting an ever-increasing appeal on people in the Western world – according to surveys, “gentle medicine” is now a valuable supplement to conventional therapy for more than two-thirds of Germans. From acupuncture to Zen meditation, many of its components have already found their way into our everyday lives. And also the western school medicine approaches itself in many ranges the holistic beginning of the Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), which regards body and soul never isolated from each other, ever further. Dr. Thomas Ruprecht, a physician at Techniker Krankenkasse (TK), describes the fundamental differences between Western and Far Eastern medicine and explains their essential approaches to diagnosis and treatment.
Question: are there fundamental differences between Western and Eastern thinking in medicine?
Dr. Thomas Ruprecht: Yes, there are. Our modern, science-based medicine is a predominantly body-based science, even though psychological and social factors are increasingly taken into account. In the West, being sick is linked to measurable changes. It is seen primarily as a malfunction of physical-chemical and biological mechanisms that can be corrected. In Traditional Chinese Medicine – TCM for short – there is no separation between body, soul and spirit. It is based on the assumption that the human body can cope with illness and recover when it is in balance of the two polarities Yin and Yang. Simply put, yin stands for matter, yang for energy – and the two merge smoothly. Chinese doctors understand the human being as an energetic structure. They call this “energetic potential” Qi. It flows through the human being like rivers and lakes through a landscape. Ancient medicine assumes that qi flows along defined paths, the so-called meridians. These guide the energy through the body.
Question: according to TCM, how do diseases develop?
Dr. Thomas Ruprecht: Traditional Chinese medicine attributes diseases to an interaction of many different factors. It distinguishes between external climatic and internal emotional influences. External factors are, for example, heat and cold, internal factors, for example, psychological stress or even an excess of certain feelings such as fear, anger or sadness.
Question: and according to this, what happens when a person is ill?
Dr. Thomas Ruprecht: According to Chinese conception, the harmonious flow of the life energy Qi is disturbed when a person is ill. There is either an abundance or a weakness of life energy in the organ systems and the meridians. A weakness of the Qi leads to the fact that the appropriate organs do not function any longer correctly or it comes quite generally to symptoms such as tiredness, mood lows, paleness or low blood pressure. In contrast, an abundance of vital energy leads to an excessive reaction of the corresponding organ systems. A main symptom of filling disorders is heat. It can be limited to one joint, for example, or it can affect the whole body as a fever. Acute, cramping and stabbing pain may also result, and sufferers are often internally restless and nervous.
Question: now how does the Chinese doctor arrive at a diagnosis?
Dr. Thomas Ruprecht: The way to a diagnosis is different in Traditional Chinese Medicine than in Western medicine. The Chinese physician primarily uses his senses – that is, looking and seeing, hearing and smelling, inquiring and touching – to determine a so-called pattern of disharmony based on the patient’s symptoms, external appearance and physical examination.
Question: and what is a disharmony pattern?
Dr. Thomas Ruprecht: A disharmony pattern can be roughly thought of as what is called a syndrome in the West, that is, the sum of various symptoms. However, a syndrome in the Chinese sense also means their cause and interpretation according to the ideas of the traditional medical system. The pattern of disharmony describes an imbalance in the patient’s body, encompassing its entire gestalt. Thus, the Chinese physician does not arrive at a specific, isolated disease or precise organic causes. One must think of a Chinese diagnosis as an almost poetic-sounding description of the whole patient.Nevertheless, this gives the physician a defined type of treatment and a clear treatment goal.
