Clinical Integration:West! Curriculum

25 Jul 2016 General

Clinical Integration 2017: West-Curriculum

Weekend #1: September 15/16/17 2017

The Big Picture

This first weekend will focus significantly on Five-element Constitutional Diagnosis. We will review diagnosis by Color, Sound, Odor, Emotion and how to understand constitution as defining the theme and thread of an individual’s life story-The lens through which they attribute meaning to life and come to embody that meaning as both health and pathology. We will also examine the whole pulse and issues regarding stability. This weekend is the foundation for the BIG PICTURE.

Friday:

  1. Orientation
  2. Understanding Constitutional Diagnosis.
  3. Our Path Through Life: Conception thru Death and Beyond.
  4. States and Stages of Development.
  5. Resistance, Suppression, Denial, Stagnation.

Saturday:

  1. The Five Elements:

Virtue, Emotion, & Spirit of each element. Associations, and life themes of the elements. The perspective that liberates each element.

Sunday Morning:

  1. The Five Elements Continued
  2. Diagnosis
  3. Exercises in identifying constitution.

Sunday Afternoon:

  1. Orienting toward the pulse
  2. Stability

Reading:

  1. Nourishing Destiny: Chapters 8 (The Five Elements), 9 (Constitutional Type), 10 (The Five Elemental Constitutions).
  2.    Handbook of Contemporary Pulse Diagnosis: Chapters 1-7.      Place special emphasis on 6 (stability) and 7 (rate).

Assignments:

  • Learn the names of the Five-element, source, lou, and Xi-cleft points on the Left half of the Fire (Ht/SI) Channels and for the Water channels.
  • Contemplate: “What is the most significant thing I could change about myself that would have positive results in my life and the life of everyone I exist in relation to?” Then do it and note the consequences.
  • Practice the pulse as taught in every clinical encounter.

Objectives:

  1. Learn Color, Sound, Odor, & Emotion as the basis of Five-element Diagnosis.
  2. Understand the basis of each element in terms of spirit, emotion, and virtue.
  3. Understand the notion of “Constitution.”
  4. Hold an overarching view of the path of life and death as the context for the practice of medicine.
  5. Hold a picture of the whole pulse and the importance of Stability.

 

Weekend #2: November 10/11/12 2017

The Intake, Treatment Planning, & Pulse Patterns

“The scripture states: Anybody who looks and knows it is to be called a spirit; anybody who listens and knows it is to be called a sage; anybody who asks and knows it is to be called an artisan; anybody who feels the vessels and knows it is to be called a skilled Workman.” –Nanjing 61

Friday:

  1. The intake: To Look and to Know
  2. How to conduct an intake.
  3. What can be seen?
  4. Establishing Rapport
  5. Words as Medicine
  6. The importance of Reframing
  7. Constitution as the overarching context of assimilating data.
  8. Recognizing the Big Moment.

 

  1. The process of synthesizing a diagnosis and short, medium, & long term treatment planning.
  2. 5E Constitution
  3. Physiology and pattern differentiation
  4. Expectations on Pulse, Sign, and Symptom change.
  5. Words as medicine: The power of metaphor, What to tell the patient, how much, and how soon.

Saturday: Clearing Treatments

  1. Aggressive Energy
  2. Possession
  3. Husband/Wife
  4. Stabilize the Pulse
  5. Open the Diaphragm
  6. Exit/Entry Blocks
  7. Akabanies: Left/Right Meridian Imbalances

Sunday:

  1. Pulse: The two sides

a. Right Side Strong, Left Side Weak (Husband/Wife)

b. Left side strong/Right Side Weak (Digestive system collapse)

c. Both sides weak: Organ and digestive system collapse, Weak qi and blood, yin and yang: Chongmai/CV/GV

d. Right Side Tight: Eat too fast

e. Both sides tense: Nervous system tense: Vigilance

2. Pulse Exercises with class.

Reading:

  1. Nourishing Destiny: Chapter 14 The Intake.
  2. Clinical Practice: Chapters 1-11 Clearing Blocks.
  3. Nourishing Destiny: Ch 7: The Turning Point
  4. Dragon Rises: Chapter 14. The Systems Model of Dr. John Shen.
  5. Listen to this audio in the context of the H/W imbalance and the Turning Point: http://www.nourishingdestiny.com/audio-teachings/lonny-jarrett-understanding-the-law-of-cure-and-the-healing-crisis.html
  6. Clinical Practice, CH 21: Treatment Planning.
  7. Clinical Practice, CH 22: The Suggestive Process in Treatment

Assignments:

  1. Learn the names of the Five-element, source, lou, and Xi-cleft points on the Right half of the Fire Channels (HP/TH).
  2. Continue to practice the pulse identifying Left/Right patterns and issues of stability.
  3. Begin to apply the clearing treatments in clinical practice as appropriate.

Objectives:

  1. Learn to conduct an intake with an eight-mile high, top-down perspective.
  2. Prioritize early treatments to clear the therapeutic field and set a foundation for integral healing.
  3. Learn the patterns involving both sides of the pulse.
  4. Understand the nature of resistance.

Weekend # 3: March 16/17/18 2018

     “For the practitioner, the patient appears as a pointillist painting. During each treatment, the practitioner uses her diagnostic skills to comprehend the functional portrait that emerges from the patient. The practitioner, in choosing a treatment, is concerned with where in the portrait to place a dot (acupuncture point) and what color to make it (quality of qi) so that the picture is complete in the moment.”-Nourishing Destiny.

Friday:

  1. Acupuncture Points: Points as Archetype
  2. Source Points
  3. Lou Points
  4. Xi-Cleft
  5. Reunion points
  6. Spirit Points
  7. Windows

Saturday:

  1. The Five Element Points (Much Emphasis!)
  2. Mu Points
  3. Shu Points
  4. Exit/Entry Points: The heart and sensory orifices.

Exercises: Painting by numbers-How to design elegant treatments that capture a patient’s “Energetic” Portrait.

Sunday:

I will continue the elaboration of a deep pre-TCM physiology as a foundation for lifestyle counseling and dietary, acupuncture, and herbal prescription.

  1. Pulse: Two Continuums: The progression to jing deficiency through the consumption of yin and yang
  2. Blood Depth of the pulse
  3. Pulse exercises and practice.

Reading:

  1. Clinical Practice: Chapters 12-20 on Types of Acupuncture Points.
  2. Nourishing Destiny: Ch. 13, The Inner Nature of Acupuncture Point
  • Clinical Practice: Read the point and channel descriptions for all the points in chapters 24-35.
  1. Clinical Practice: Chapter 37, Cognitive Styles in the Practice of Chinese Medicine.

Assignments:

  1. Learn the names of the Five-element, source, lou, and Xi-cleft points on the Right half of the Wood Channels (Lv/Gb).
  2. Continue to practice the pulse identifying where a patient falls on the two continuums of yin and yang
  3. Begin to apply the clearing treatments in clinical practice as appropriate.

Objectives:

  1. Understand the nature of the acupuncture point categories
  2. Learn to match points directly to your impression of the patient.
  3. Learn to compare a patients pulse to their age and assess where they are on the continuum of yin and yang deficiency.

 

Weekend #4: May 17/18/19 2018

Friday

  1. The Inner Nature of Herb Formulas
  2. Constitutional Formulas For each Element
  3. Formulas for Possession
  4. Pain
  5. Gu, Lyme
  6. Infections
  7. GYN
  8. Spirit: Depression, Anxiety

Saturday

  1. Exercises in color, sound, odor, and emotion
  2. Testing emotions
  3. Seeing color
  4. Listening for sound.

Sunday:

  1. The individual positions, Upper, Middle, Lower Jiao
  2. Pulse calibration and practice.

Readings:

  1. Clinical Practice: Ch. 10, Removing Blocks with Chinese Herb.

Assignments:

  1. Learn the names of the Five-element, source, lou, and Xi-cleft points on the Right half of the Metal and Earth Channels (Lu/LI, Sp/St).
  2. Continue to practice the pulse identifying the qualities present in the blood depth of the pulse.
  3. Contemplate and begin to apply the herb formulas in a constitutional context as appropriate.

Objectives:

  1. Understand the constitutional Herb formulas
  2. Learn to use herbs to clear the therapeutic field
  3. Learn pulse patterns for Constitutional herb formulas
  4. Deepen constitutional Diagnosis by Color, Sound, Odor, Emotion.
  5. Lear to diagnose the condition of the blood on the pulse.

Weekends #5-#8: Clinical Integration

September 7/8/9 2018

November 2/3/4 2018

March15/16/17 2019

May 10/11/12 2019

Each of these four weekends will be clinical in nature. I will assess patients brought in by students in front of the class. Each patient’s case will be presented for 2 hours with detailed analysis and presentation of a complete synthesis from multiple perspectives 5E, 8P, Pulse, Tongue, Eye, State and Stage development. Prognosis will be discussed along with an in depth treatment plan. Students will be allowed to take the pulse and check the tongue and eye. All other pulse qualities, herbal formulas, and aspects of the medicine will be elaborated in the context of the patients we see together.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday:

9-930am: Orientation

9:30-11am: Patient interview

11-12:30pm: Analysis

12:30-1:30 Lunch

1:30-2:00 Questions

2-3:30: Patient interview

3:30-5PM: Analysis

Assignments:

            Write up one full intake, diagnosis, and treatment plan presenting a synthesis of what you have learned.

  • What is the Constitution?
  • The 8P pattern?
  • How are the two related?
  • What was the most telling moment in the intake?
  • How is that moment reflected thematically in other places in the interview? In the constitution? In the Physiological diagnosis?
  • What is the major issue that needs reframing?
  • What is the short, medium, and long term treatment plan?

Objectives:

  1. Learn to create your own synthesis in diagnosis and treatment planning.
  2. Learn to articulate your process to reveal what you know, and what you need work on.
  3. Learn to use the process of diagnosis as the foundation of initiating healing.