Allopathic or Western (modern)
medicine is practiced by qualified physicians.
Its model is reductionist in
that using the scientific method strives to break down and separate the
elements to find the smallest unit that can be modified to treat disease—for
example, going to the molecular level and changing the chemical elements that
interact in a symptom such as pain, using synthesized (MUCH of the time synthetically manufactured) chemical compounds
(drugs), or modifying or removing body parts with surgery. The emphasis is in the body parts and
symptoms of disease.
This system is the reason that you
have a different specialist for the different organs, body parts or groups of
diseases—cardiologist (heart), nephrologist (kidneys), oncologist (cancer), and
so forth—thus each physician can narrow down his or her field of expertise to a
smaller part of the body or a disease in particular. This process sometimes ends in having
different physicians treating the same person for different things, in some
cases prescribing conflicting treatment options. The circumstance that certain drugs used to
improve one symptom caused harm to another function or organ of the body has
occurred, such as a brand of pain medicine that had to be removed from the
market because it caused increased rates of heart problems. (Think
of all those law suit commercials you see on TV about a drug causing serious
damage or death, and/or drug commercials that warn against serious side effects
that may occur.)
Traditional Asian medicine (such as
Healing Touch Energy Therapy, Medicupping, and Massage) is a system that
includes all parts of the body, mind, emotions, and spirit, as well as the
harmonious interaction of the individual with his or her surroundings (nature
and the cosmos) in one indivisible continuum or unit. Any
change in the parts of the system will affect the system as a whole; therefore
any intervention is done having the whole system in consideration, not just the
part being manipulated.
Doing bodywork from the perspective
of the traditional Asian medicine model of health, I have the chance to create
changes that will affect you at many levels, maybe changing how you feel
emotionally or even modifying patterns of behavior based on belief systems (see testimonials on my website and Massage
Benefits), such as how you see yourself in the world. Any type of massage can have this effect, but
knowing the theory of Asian bodywork therapy gives YOU a method to evaluate and
understand changes that occur beyond the purely physical aspects.
The main difference between Eastern
and Western massage resides in the fact that the Eastern approach uses physical
touch (energy therapy) to balance the energetic system that includes, but is
not solely defined by, the physical body.
The American Organization for
Bodywork Therapies of Asia (AOBTA) defines Asian bodywork therapy (ABT) as the
treatment of the human body/mind/spirit including the electromagnetic or
energetic field, which envelopes, surrounds, infuses, and
brings that body to life by pressure and/or manipulation.
--Taken from Susan G Salvo’s MASSAGE THERAPY PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES,
3RD ED., p. 755.
