Eastern Vs Western Medicine

The reversal of chronic conditions can be a long process. In Chinese Medicine, it is believed that if you have moved into chronic illness of any kind, a balancing principle must be applied to all five systems of our bodies simultaneo

usly –respiratory, endocrine, digestive, circulatory, and immune must be bought back to harmony.

Western Medicine

• 19th Century

• Mind/Body Split

• Western Medicine treats the physical body, it does not acknowledge energy fields as clinically significant for diagnosis or treatment

• Based on a culture that focuses on the physical world, Western Medicine’s approach to the mind/body is to “fix” the physical body. Here, the mind is seen as an organ, the brain and therefore physical. If the body is missing a substance, the Western approach is to supply it. Medical science has evolved to further refine the fixing with better drugs and surgical technology. The limitations come with medication side effects and the number of medicines someone can tolerate without burdening an already impaired body.

Eastern Medicine

• 5,000 years ago

• Mind-Body Is One

• Eastern traditions treat the physical body and its surrounding energy fields, called the subtle bodies. These traditions maintain that illness begins in the energy (subtle) bodies that surround the physical body and is ultimately expressed in the physical body.

• The Eastern approach is to engage the mind/body’s self-healing mechanisms. This is largely done by balancing the body’s energy fields and ridding it of energetic blockages. If the mind/body is missing a substance, the Eastern approach is to stimulate the body to heal and be able to make it. The limitation comes with trauma and severe illnesses that undermine the mind/body capacity to heal.