TCM & Herbs: What is TCM ( Traditional Chinese Medicine ) ?
What is Traditional Chinese Medicine ( TCM ) ?
When all these elements are balanced, we experience steady health and wellness, both physical and emotional.
According to TCM, all our organs and vital body functions interact in a single continuum, each one influencing, restraining and controlling each other.
This means that harmony (which here means the healthy absence of pain and disease) within the whole body depends on the good functioning and interactions between all the vital systems and organs.
If even one element is not fully functioning as it should, our entire organism will suffer for it.
The difference between the TCMholistic approach and that of western medicine is evident: while modern Western medicine views body and mind as separate entities (therefore treating particular diseases with specific drugs, and searching to eliminate offending micro-organisms from our bodies), Chinese medicine uses natural approaches to rebalance our whole being, never separating out the mind and/or body from the environment.
Where western medicine frequently neglects and even denies the reciprocal interactions of body and mind, TCM aims to restore the balance between the physical and the metaphysical.
We all familiar with the specialized fields into which western medicine has divided itself in recent decades. It is common now to have different doctors, cures, prescriptions and therapies for every last individual body part and system.
For every health issue we experience, we are advised to consult a different specialist and are frequently prescribed drugs and medications that when combined create adverse and unhelpful reactions between each other. In historical terms, this approach has evolved from the West’s 17th and 18th Century concept of the body as a machine from which single components could be removed, analysed, repaired and reinstalled to ensure the good functioning of the whole system.
When all these elements are balanced, we experience steady health and wellness, both physical and emotional.
According to TCM, all our organs and vital body functions interact in a single continuum, each one influencing, restraining and controlling each other.
This means that harmony (which here means the healthy absence of pain and disease) within the whole body depends on the good functioning and interactions between all the vital systems and organs.
If even one element is not fully functioning as it should, our entire organism will suffer for it.
