Chinese medicine could be a major force in the field of mental health treatment. The widespread belief is that acupuncture is somatic medicine, albeit with calming effects. However, classical Chinese medicine has a rich history in the treatment of all mental-emotional conditions.
Psychedelics are an emerging treatment in the psychiatric field, often used alongside psychotherapy for treatment of depression, PTSD and substance use disorders. Michael Pollan’s books, How to Change Your Mind and A World Appears, have done much to popularize the use of psychedelics as tools for mental health and spiritual development.
It’s curious, though, that acupuncture has not become widely known for the treatment of mental health. While many practitioners say they practice “mind-body” wellness, our profession is still not considered a leading resource for mental heath. We obviously need a better publicist.
The first hurdle, which Pollan covers in his books, is the Western notion that mind and body are separate entities. Classical Chinese medicine does not have this bias, even if many Western practitioners might. The medicine always treats mind and body simultaneously. It’s not necessarily the treatments that fail to establish acupuncture as effective for mental health, but our own Western context.
I recall my teacher reminding us to put every Western diagnosis into Chinese medical thinking, be it TCM pattern diagnosis or according to channel theory involving levels of qi-energy: wei, ying and yuan. We must always work from the qi-energetic mode of thinking, not the biological Western model; although obviously we must also translate back to the general public to be understood and embraced. It is a particular challenge we face as Western practitioners of classical Eastern medicine.
Study of the medical classics is imperative. For example, we find discussion of mental illness most clearly in the Nei Jing discussion of dian kuang: mania and withdrawal. This is a good starting point from which we can branch into contextualizing all other afflictions of mind and emotions.
The Luo Vessels are also a good model for working with the mental-emotional. The Luo, translated as “connecting vessels,” are channels of psychosomatic expression that follow a sequence. The sequence describes pathogenesis related to mental illness, including behavioral and personality disorders.
The culmination of the Luo Vessel sequence is a depository called the “Great Luo,” where unresolved difficulties drain into the level of “the constitution” as represented by the Extraordinary Vessels, especially the Dai Vessel (Belt Channel) and Qiao Vessels (Stance Channels).
The Great Luo is a stage where a person passes a threshold; where “psycho-sclerosis” sets in. The brightness of the spirit becomes dimmed, biased, fixated or reduced. The somatic representation of the Great Luo is pain all over the body and weakness of the joints: the inability to deal with “heart pains,” leading to constant suffering and eventual loss of engagement with oneself and the world.
When a condition passes from the Great Luo into the Dai and Qiao Vessels, a degenerative process occurs. The stance becomes imbalanced and hardened, and the digestive process weakens. We become rigid, or hyperfocused on the internal or the external world, losing balance between the two. We habitually repress emotions, unable to transform and transport thoughts and feelings. We age and diminish.
This can lead to depression, despair, paranoia, even schizophrenia and suicide. This is detailed in the progression theory of the Luo Vessels as they enter into the Great Luo and beyond. We have a hardening of the mind and attitude: “psycho-sclerosis.”
This is arguably what the modern use of psychedelics is trying to address. It is also what many of us within the Chinese medicine field are trying to explore.
The revolution we are experiencing in Western psychiatry also occurred in classical Chinese medicine. We would benefit from reconnecting to this. Historically, it was believed once issues entered the level of the constitution (the Extraordinary Vessels), they were beyond reach of the Primary Channels; they couldn’t be accessed or changed, at least by the layperson. The alchemists and mystics could do so via meditation perhaps, but not within common medical practice.
During the later stage of classical Chinese medical history, there was a change in attitude. Accessing the Extraordinary Vessels started to be explored within the medical establishment. This was no longer just the realm of the mystic.
Pollan contextualizes the history of psychedelics in a similar way. They’ve also traditionally been tools of mystics, yet not widely used by the medical establishment, until now. This change in attitude is something we as acupuncturists could contribute to, as it is already built into our medical system.
Historically, it was a rather revolutionary belief that such deep levels of repression could be accessed. We can not only work with “karma,” altering our destiny, but also clear material from the ancestral line and alter our way of perceiving.
Entrance into the Extraordinary Vessels and their connection to the brain is achieved through the Luo Vessels, which connects to “the source.” The passageway by which unresolved material finds its way into the Extraordinary Vessels also provides entrance to pull it out.
The organic representation of this process is the gallbladder: considered the bridge between the Primary Channels and the Extraordinary Vessels. Classically the Gallbladder and Bladder Channels access the brain and have the ability to pull material out of it.
As we come to understand the Great Luo, the Qiao and Dai Vessels, we must develop our appreciation of acupuncture points from the Gallbladder and Bladder Channels. It is through these points that we access the energy of the brain. Points like GB 22 (Yuan Ye; the classical Great Luo), GB 26 (Dai Mai), GB 27 (Wu Shu), GB 28 (Wei Dao), BL 62 (Shen Mai), BL 59 (Fu Yang), BL 1 (Jing Ming), and GB 20 (Feng Chi) contain a depth of action far beyond what most of us learn in school.
The acupuncture points are energetic portals. They are living entities. They require cultivation to access. Most of us are only utilizing the very minimum.
When we can go beyond our own limited view of reality, especially related to the mind-body connection, we can unlock the capacity to work with acupuncture points that achieve the results of psychedelic therapy and experience of the mystics and alchemists.
First, we need to unlock this capacity within ourselves. We need to create a more expansive relationship with the acupuncture channels and points. We need to address our own belief system: Do we believe the Extraordinary Vessels (and brain) are beyond our reach? Perhaps if we lack relationship with the Luo Vessels we might.
Do we believe we can access such deep levels within ourselves and our patients? As I see it, if we believe we can’t, then that is what our practice will be. Yet if we believe we can, a whole world can open up to us and our profession, and we may yet become the profession that is most applicable in the treatment of mental health.
