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.
Benjamin Hawes, DAcCHM, LAc, Dipl. OM
Dr. Benjamin Hawes focuses his practice on aligning the body, soul, and mind to be greater than the sum of their parts through transformative work in multiple modalities including acupuncture, herbal medicine, craniosacral therapy, shamanism, and Zen meditation. He is the developer of the Backupuncture system of distal acupuncture spinal realignment, which he has taught to other acupuncturists as an NCCAOM continuing-education provider.
Prior to studying traditional East Asian medicine, Dr. Hawes graduated magna cum laude from Brown University with a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies with honors. He completed his master's degree at the New England School of Acupuncture and his Doctor of Acupuncture and Chinese Herbal Medicine degree from the Pacific College of Health Sciences.