Real-Life Communication
You are visiting with a patient who is new to traditional Chinese
medicine. He wants to know the philosophy behind the practice.
You
tell him that it's impossible to understand Chinese medicine without understanding
traditional Chinese philosophy. You tell him about the principles of heaven
and Earth, about the central idea Tao, and about yin and yang.
"We
use writing skills to keep patient records and to review them," says Fred
Kwak, a Chinese medicine practitioner. "We also have to have excellent communication
skills to tell people what we are doing for them."
Your patient is
particularly interested in the concept of yin and yang and asks you a few
questions about it. By reading the excerpt below, help answer the patient's
questions:
Yin and Yang
Yin and yang expresses
a system of relationships, patterns and functions. Everything in the Chinese
view of the world and of life is related to a dynamic balance of yin and yang.
Everything
has an inside (yin) and an outside (yang), a top (yang) and a bottom (yin),
and there is continual interchange and communication between the two. Life
takes place in the alternating rhythm of yin and yang -- day gives way to
night, night to day; a time of light and activity (yang) is followed by darkness
and rest (yin).
Flowers open and close, the moon waxes and wanes, the
tides come in and go out; we wake and sleep, breathe in, breathe out. Yin
and yang are an inseparable couple. Their proper relationship is health; a
disturbance in this relationship is disease.
In medicine, yin and yang
is used to describe and distinguish patterns of disharmony. Within the body,
the back is considered yang in relation to the front, which is more yin. The
lower parts of the body are yin in relation to the upper parts, which are
yang. The interior of the body is yin in relation to the exterior, yang.
(Excerpt
from: A Guide to Acupuncture by Peter Firebrace and Sandra Hill. Constable:
London, 1994)
Questions:
- In general, is the top of something yin or yang?
- What happens when there is a disturbance in the balance of a person's
yin and yang?
- Is a person's interior yin or yang?
- Is the back or front yang?