Practitioner Tools for Acupuncturists
Training in acupuncture and Chinese medicine has changed dramatically over the last 30 odd years. Many of the original concepts have been discarded or trivialised with the advent of TCM and the push for recognition by the western medical "experts".
I have placed the information on this site to help those who are sometimes wondering if they have lost their way.
Often when with a patient we can forget the obvious, so caught up in their story, or our story, what we think we are supposed to be doing, what we were told to do, what the books say is important – and sometimes the answer is there looking back at us.
There is a focus in this work – clearing blockages.
On all levels.
Firstly – calm the Shen – and at the same time - why is the body not healing itself?
All else will be worked through by the body – something has stymied its own healing efforts.
Why am I doing this?
Partly to give back to the profession. I have learned much from following a couple of now dead masters about and incorporating their information and ways of working in my own practice. Their work was not published. They had filled their lives with actual observation. Studying patients and learning through personal observation – developing their models to fit and really being masters of their own very different styles of pulse taking. No statistics – all anecdotal and based upon building their own pulse and body diagnostics patterns. All explainable not through systems models now studied, but through their own –(gleaned from over 60 years in both cases), lives of being people students and healers. (See more)
After 30 years of listening to all manner of seminars, workshops and other people’ experiences, I am ready to add my own hat into the ring. I ‘retired’ several years ago – and could not stay silent, so I am back again.
I personally have taken acupuncture in to our context – touching and listening and being there as a person is central to what I do with needles. Often vibrational essences or the Aura Soma range make people through and beyond where they are stick. I have tried to stay on target with ‘just’ acupuncture unless the shifts were too important - as we do find – emotion and being stuck there account for most of why healing is awaiting something. Often it may be just the listener to acknowledge their pain and their journey. Often it may be as magic as ‘this point does that’.
The consequences of many modern issues have meant that it can sometimes be seen that the Emperor has no clothes on. The scrabble for validation through academic means; publication - especially rather than solid and inspired clinical work has meant that those wishing to be acupuncturists often get taught by those who actually do not like patients /cannot actually do the job – hence to utilise their training – they teach.
This is not helped by the lack of financial compensation and the personal aggravation that trying to turn a large educational business devoted to keeping itself going, rather than being there to improve the state of gradates and post graduate education – and hence the profession. To this end, this former undergraduate course designer, lecturer, mentor and senior clinician has decided to assist those who are struggling, at any stage of their professional interface with acupuncture, by sharing how she sees through what may be obscuring, to the clarity decades of practice can afford.
Major issues I seek to address prior to any ‘diagnosis’:
1 - Calm the Shen
2 - Move the Blockages.
Often they go together – and often all that we need to do is listen /be there.
Often there is nothing left to do – as what was blocking healing is now out of the way.
We may not need to go through the mental exercises of deciding what box they fit into. This is hard to teach in the industrial educational model. It is much simpler to teach as people do not appear in real life – and that is what is happening. People are not discreet symptom pictures – they are dynamic, random and move with the tides of life. Segments of information delivered in units are not conducive to where we need to head when trying to problem solve in clinic.
You may have tried to work it through – you may have lots of different apparently important texts in front of you. I am suggesting closing them all – how do you know that person is any use in practice anyway – being published infers nothing other than having connections.
The person who is employing you needs your full attention. Training yourself to think and to gather and garner what is real is your life’s task. I am suggesting possibly watching how I dealt with these issues so long ago, through observing masters far advanced from me may be a help to you.
Hence, regardless of you experience with acupuncture and its practice, I am suggesting that these simple rules can be used immediately in your own practice and the results are there immediately also.
Some of the work here will be as before. There is a great amount I have nearly finished so if you have fond this site recently, I suggest you keep tabs on it as there are a large number of photographic essays to be downloaded, and these will happen over the next few weeks. My real project is to get a text (eBook style probably) up for pregnancy and this also needs the publication of the Eight Extras and the Moving Blockages work that precedes it – hence the diverse nature of the cases presented. They are all real, they are all written from the wholistic (human) perspective. If this style is offensive – possibly the actual clinical side of practice may also be. People live in a mess – of expectations, behaviours, memories and pain. We are all there together. What is different about this work is that I recognise this, and that we are all patients and all teachers – and the insights gained from watching others does actually give us as clinicians a huge help in our own personal undoing our own lives.
Article - Scars and What We May Do in the Papers and Videos download section presents several real world case studies illustrating why it is important to get flow moving first, before focussing on diagnosis.
Click here to discuss in the Practitioner Forum |
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Wendy (Brisbane):
“Good on you for all the work you put in to practitioner tools and education, this is priceless for people like myself. Having just graduated, it is wonderful to have a senior and very successful practitioner sharing their work”.
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April ( Brisbane):
"In the last six months I have been taken on a learning journey that has completely changed my views on acupuncture, and how I work as an acupuncturist. Since I have been watching Heather work I have been shown a completely new way of thinking/being. What I have learnt is to treat a person as someone who has lived a life, whose life has impacted upon their blueprint. We were not taught this at university."
Read more ...
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Jennifer, UK:
“I am impressed by the depth of your research into Chinese medicine, your understanding of what women need and the sheer amount of work involved in what you have created.”
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Mike, (Queensland):
"I plugged your 'sharpen-up...' website while guest lecturing at last night. Awesome video.
Well done and thank you."
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Janet - (Spain):
‘I think your approach is brilliant, you are forthright and speak common sense, a rare commodity these days!’
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Camilla ( Brisbane):
"What I gained from doing the workshop with you:
- for the first time since I graduated I felt excited about the prospect of being an Acupuncturist. I left feeling very enthusiastic with the thought that “yes, I can do that, I can help these women". Whereas before I wanted to help them but was somehow blocked, or lacking in all the tools. The workshop opened up my eyes to other methods of dealing with these cases outside TCM which I have always instinctively known but never had the permission to use without feeling like I was practicing un pure TCM.
- It reawakened my interest with the 8extras, a topic that was belittled sometime in the 4th year of college when we were doing the research subject.
- I confirmed some of my deep personal subconscious beliefs about birthing that I must have had passed down to me from my mother because they were never something we learnt at college.
- I gave me the confidence to clearly see what was REALLY happening when I visited one of my patients after a C-section in a private hospital a week later. The uneasy feeling about what was being done to here was more than an uneasy feeling but a clear picture of the patterns being laid down that would affect her and her babies for years to come.
And the main the course gave me was a passion and a need to be practicing in the area of women’s health which I have toyed with for years but never actively perused because I had the belief that I needed to have a general practice and not exclude all the other cases because if I did I would not have enough patients and would not be able to make a living, I now realise there are an abundance of birthing women who need our help."
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Paddy McBride Dip Ch Ed, M Hlth Sci(TCM)
Nelson, New Zealand:
"As an acupuncturist and a Childbirth Educator and having worked with expectant couples and new parents on both sides of the Tasman, I am confident that Heather’s work can and will make a difference in the wonderful world of birth.
The techniques outlined by Heather are a current take on ancient wisdom, in a readily accessible package for anyone, regardless of their previous knowledge of either birth or acupuncture.
I especially appreciate Heather’s attention to referencing and cross-referencing her work, thus enabling the reader to quickly go to the part of the book they need with a minimum of effort.
Her work will be of interest not only to couples but also to other health professionals with an interest in facilitating natural childbirth."
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Maurice (Netherlands):
"Thanks for sending me your books and DVDs to my address in Holland. I enjoyed your conference last year very much.
Your 'hands on' approach is just what I needed by that time, and it has influenced my way of working. I was getting too confused and fet up with all the theoretical textbooks.
Would be great if you can come another time and show us some more practical devices. big hug, M."
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Kim (Los Altos, USA):
"A colleague of mine went to one of your classes and allowed me to view her DVDs of your lecture on Women's health.. and now I'm hooked!
I LOVE what you're teaching, and hope to catch up with you next lecture series in the states if there are any coming up.
I love how you weave the spiritual, feminine into your teaching."
With gratitude!
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Marlene Farry (Acupuncturist, NZ):
"Heather Bruce is an outstanding clinician - achieving results in cases both chronic and complex.
Her contribution to Acupuncture and Holistic (wise woman) health in Australia and New Zealand is far sighted, revolutionary and thankfully, with thoughtful pragmatic application."
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Robin Kerr, NZRA, NDA:
"I was a fortunate participant in Heathers course on 'removing blockages'.
It was great to have her years of experience and passion in working in women's health.
As a relatively new acupuncturist but with many years experience in women's health, this course gave confidence and validation to the work I do.
Many of her techniques and resources are used in my work now on a regular basis."
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Mike (Sunshine Coast):
"I was extremely moved by your last post on the Need More info on OB/GYN and Infertility thread.
You wrote, among other amazing lines,:"but should we look as an experienced people observer, with the intent to help and heal and with an open enquiring mind, and the acupuncture/energy framework at our disposal, we can often attend to those where hope seems gone."
Well, I read that and I almost had tears in my eyes. It is people such as you who embody the very essence of inspiration for practitioners and students of acupuncture. When I read some of the things you write, they serve as great reminders that I am on the right path in life and in my job."
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Nick:
“I opened myself up to being more shamanistic again. My roots have been lost in the more technical aspects of studying, and the spiritual is reasserting itself again. Your passion is thus inspiring. On a more personal note, I am examining your sexual concepts and the difference between potency and vitality”.
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Camilla:
“For the first time since I graduated I felt excited about the prospect of being an acupuncturist.
I left feeling very enthusiastic with the thought that "yes, I can do that, I can help these women" - whereas before I wanted to help them but was somehow blocked, or lacking in all the tools.
The workshop opened up my eyes to other methods of dealing with these cases outside TCM which I have always instinctively known but never had the permission to use without feeling like I was practicing ‘impure’ TCM.
It also reawakened my interest with the 8 extras, a topic that was belittled sometime in the 4th year of college when we were doing our research subject.
It gave me the confidence to clearly see what was REALLY happening when I visited one of my patients after a C-section in a private hospital a week later.
The uneasy feeling about what was being done to here was more than an uneasy feeling but a clear picture of the patterns being laid down that would affect her and her babe for years to come”.
The course gave me was a passion and a need to be practicing in the area of women’s health which I have toyed with for years but never actively pursued.
I had the belief that I needed to have a general practice and not exclude all the other cases because if I did I would not have enough patients and would not be able to make a living, I now realise there are an abundance of birthing women who need our help.
Thankyou so much – you validated some of my deep personal subconscious beliefs about birthing that I must have had passed down to me from my mother because they were never something we learnt at college."
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Mark:
“I came away from the seminar with an appreciation of your extensive experience – especially the application over time working out such things as the sacral massage. The next day, I was aware of the practical tips – like the different depths of needling affecting different meridians. The main thing I possibly got was the thought that I did not need to couple the eight extras when working with them.
“I learn visually, so I really liked the use of the whiteboard. In clinic – I had not thought of the role of the temperature the way that you explained and am working differently now with those coming in with infertility. Especially important was your concept of anything that creates heat as being a jing disruptor – a very useful tool for use in talking with patients”.
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Sheridan:
“It definitely got me thinking and am doing things differently.
I am now more aware of blockages and am not automatically coupling the 8 extras as we do in the Japanese style.”
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Wendy (Brisbane):
“Good on you for all the work you put in to practitioner tools and education, this is priceless for people like myself. Having just graduated, it is wonderful to have a senior and very successful practitioner sharing their work”.
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