Self-Healing with Chinese Medicine: A Home Guide to Treating Common Ailments by Clive Witham, 2023. Published by Findhorn Press, a division of Inner Traditions International, Rochester, Vermont. Illustrated, 292 pages, index, color illustrations.
A Review
Author Clive Witham’s focus is on four kinds of therapies that improve bodily health. The therapies he suggests are Food, Manual (Touch), Exercise, and Lifestyle. He says that with these modalities the body can access optimal circulation of energy, nutrition and fluids, achieve balance between the storage systems, smooth the flow of digestion, and your relationship to life.
If you’re someone who’s familiar with touch therapies for bodily pains and common ailments, but are disappointed and results are inconsistent, you might benefit from this new book by Clive Witham.
Self-Healing with Chinese Medicine is a new approach to manual treatment therapies that requires not just one, but up to four different modes of healing. One of the therapies is the practice of touch to relieve pain and improve conditions of the body. It comes from the old and venerable text, the Huangdi Neijing, a 2000 year-old Chinese text on medicine and health. Its goal is to radically upgrade our health.
The following review is my take on these therapies and the points of view they offer on health and well-being.
More than Theory
Features of the book set a new standard among handbooks on Chinese medicine. While most authors offer textbook remedies that conform to expectations, the author’s interpretation is new. In his opening statements on the value of Chinese medicine, he says: ” … there’s a premise that underlies everything, and gives us the basic understanding we need of how to keep in good health.” p 17
Terms he translated from the Chinese text include yin and yang, which became breath motion, and meridian, which in Self-Healing becomes river system.
Expansion & Contraction, or Breath Motion
Witham sets out a theory that energy of life is called “breath motion”. Breath motion is his term for expansion and contraction. The obvious exchange that happens when breathing in and breathing out is what allows movement to occur. As a concept, breath motion stands for any life process or function, not just for noses and lungs. If we’re not healthy, breath motion becomes unbalanced, thus warning us of a potential problem by sending a message of pain.
The Rivers of the Body
Witham’s theory of radical health involves the body’s communication systems. He says that when it comes to energy and information, both the human body and the earth’s waterways exhibit similar systems. Basically this means that as a river carries information about its source, so do the channels of the body. Connections between bodily systems or meridians can be made with the organ(s) they correspond to.
To see where the rivers are relevant and how they affect us, look at the chapter “Treatment Regions on Your Body”. The regions are actually pairs of organs in a hierarchy of rivers that cover the entire body. If you’re familiar with terms in Chinese medicine, the pairings will be familiar, especially those which are aligned with nature’s elements: water, wood, metal, air, and fire. The pairs have positive influence when running smoothly. But when there are obstructions to the flow the pairs become messengers of distress and thus can be helpful in diagnosing a problem.
All of this may sound a bit complex. But it doesn’t have to be! You can begin anywhere it hurts and you wish to help the flow of energy and relieve the discomfort. It’s part of the process you could follow when dealing with any of a number of issues such as pain or weakness, dampness in the body, or excess.
Working with the Techniques
You’ll practice performing the techniques by following the detailed instructions. Manual techniques such as thumb pressing, finger pressure, rolling, and sweeping are recognizable from other therapies such as acupressure or Gua Sha.
In fact you may be interested to know that the Gua Sha techniques in this book are the ones he developed in a clinic he founded in North Africa. He believes this method of smoothing out the river systems of the body results in a healthier body. Like no other method it can bring blood to the surface to eliminate toxicity. It’s applicable in specific situations.
Points on the Rivers
The number of points on the body at the head, neck and shoulders, arms, legs, back, hands, feet, and ears are reduced to the main ones, so you can concentrate on the river system rather than get stuck memorizing points. Points along the meridians, or rivers, are illustrated in color. Reference them and apply them at any point in a treatment.
In Self-Healing with Chinese Medicine, the largest section is devoted to treatment plans for a range of medical conditions. Discomforts are described as being helped by each of the four therapies noted above – Food, Touch, Exercise and Lifestyle. So, for example, if you are plagued by chronic headaches, you could follow Witham’s suggested treatments for headache.
First you’ll need to identify the type of headache you usually get. Then, follow dietary protocols to eliminate the pressures the body is complaining about. Touch treatments smooth out the flow, and exercises aerate the body. Finally, look closely at your lifestyle to see where you might be sabotaging your health, often without realizing it.
Working Distally
According to Witham’s clinical experience with manual treatments, a source of the pain can be accessed on various parts of the body. That is, it can be accessed away from, or “distal to”, the part that is actually in pain. You might sense a muscular tightness, or tenseness on your arm. That’s because your head, neck and shoulders, arms, legs hands, feet, and ears are the conduit for information about a specific organ and the discomfort it is experiencing. Instead of a single direct line between your brain and nervous system, the body parts mentioned also carry information. In sensations of congestion or stagnation, pain signals an area that needs help.
My Conclusions
My impression of this handbook, at first and after numerous viewings, is that the range of techniques for self-help makes it an excellent resource. I think it offers many details on touch therapies and acupressure for specific conditions of the body and for well-being. I am intrigued by the practices which incorporate food, touch, exercise and lifestyle as help and assessment tools.
However, it did take me a few readings to acquire the scope, which is considerable here. Thinking about breath motion and river systems may sound quaint, but these are actually helpful in orienting my thinking towards what’s happening in the body. I think Witham is giving us a message that we need to become more self-aware, on the deeper level that knowledge of our body’s rivers, or communication systems, would give us. Self-Healing with Chinese Medicine aims to revolutionize the way we treat the body for its common ailments, and upgrades our chances of radiant health.
Find the book online, here.
Listening to podcasts by reveals more of this author’s knowledge about Gua Sha. I found Clive Witham’s podcasts from his website at clivewitham.com.
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