A student stands over a patient, needle poised. They have a “perfect” prescription: a textbook combination of points harvested from a lecture slide on chronic lower back pain. But as the needle meets the skin, the student hesitates - the symptom of a quiet habit that has taken hold of our profession. We routinely say we “prescribe” points. It sounds efficient. It echoes the authority of biomedical culture and fits neatly into the insurance field. But vocabulary is never neutral; repeated long enough, it dictates behavior.
A.I. Lieber, LAc, CA, Dipl, NCCAOM
A.I. Lieber (formerly Yahe Solomon) LAc, CA Dipl, NCCAOM, received his DOM in 1985 in the state of New Mexico after graduating from the Kototama Institute in 1984. He met his teachers, Dr.s M. and K. Nakazono at the age of six and became a high level aikidoka, (sixth dan) running his own aikido school for many years in addition to treating patients in New Haven and now Montana. He and his wife run a very successful acupuncture practice in Bozeman, Montana. He can be reached at bozeacu@googlepages.com.