Hi Folks, two weeks ago a practitioner on the TCM yahoo list wrote a post saying he thought that Dr. Tan’s system was “more effective” than an integrative CM diagnosis. I replied with one sentence simply: “that depends on what you think a “better” result is”. Well, as you can imagine talking about values in our community generated something like 50 responses. Many outraged! :O)<br> My response is below.
Sorry to have taken so long to follow up with my original post but I’ve been away. The original Author commented that he thought that Dr. Tan’s “balance method” might produce “better” results than TCM pattern differentiation. I commented that this determination would be based entirely on one’s value system regarding what qualified as a “better” result. It’s interesting to see how much response a single sentence regarding the importance of values generated!
At the outset let me say that I’ve heard Dr. Tan speak several times and he’s entertaining and knowledgeable. I’d love to know everything he knows and I’d enjoy spending time seeing him work in his clinic. Having said that, I haven’t heard him say a word that went beyond, ‘make pain go away as quickly as possible’ with the implication that one can then, ‘see lots of patients, and make lots of money’. Success is measured by how quickly pain is diminished, and by direct inference how may patients a person sees, and how much money one makes. These are transparently Orange meme values (google) and, at least in what I’ve heard (5 hours), he hasn’t demonstrated any pretense toward any deeper or higher aspiration. My assessment has nothing to do with how any given practitioner might apply what they know of the system in context of the overall value sphere of his or her clinical practice. I know plenty of superficial, pretentious, 5E practitioners and I’ve known plenty of practitioners who exemplify depth in very many traditions.
I don’t see how Kim can claim that my one sentence was arrogant when all I claimed was that a determination of “better” in any context always rests with one’s “values”. Isn’t this just simply so?
All the survival challenges that face us today are issues determined by human choice and this directly implicates our value systems as they define an evolutionary hierarchy of consciousness. I consider that, first and foremost, CM is the science of integrity and that the point of the medicine is to help people transition from a relatively divided state to increased states of integration and wholeness. From an integral point of view this implicates all lines of development and, most importantly, the evolution of the values and morality that inform choices motivate define behavior.
From my perspective we have moved to a point of development where any approach having less than an integral perspective on medicine is outdated and irrelevant. Integral means, among other things, that the entire scope of treatment of any given individual occurs in a very large context. This context literally embraces the soul development of the patient, the process of cosmic development, the patients life conditions, constitutional type AND level of cultural development, and ultimately his or her degree of integrity. And, of course, it includes he patients health history, current condition, and all symptomatology.
From my perspective consciousness (shen) is the primary motivating force of the universe. One’s clinical perspective has to range from the greatest spiritual depth one has authentically realized (and lived up to) to the outermost level of the patient’s condition. If a practitioner holds such a view then all traditions have their place because one is looking from a perspective that will understand their correct hierarchical relevance in any given clinical situation. Without such a broad perspective, I’d say that mere pain relief just creates a world with unevolved people who feel good. And, frankly, so too does merely “balancing meridians” or Constitutional type for that matter outside of the shared value of integrative change. From a developmental perspective, such a practice merely perpetuates ignorance, creates stagnation in the developmental stream, and promotes illness.
Being ale to relieve pain efficiently is priceless and can buy a lot of credibility with patients that can be applied toward motivating them to develop greater integrity. Of course, some patients wont be interested, and some will need pain relief pronto if any other significant work is to be done. I have no specific technical issue with the tradition in questions, or with any tradition, but the perspective and context of the tradition is lacking, according to what I’ve seen, in light of the challenges and call of the time in which we live. In part, my determination is based on the transcendence of “compassion” as the primary value for those in the main demographic of those who administer and receive CM in the West at the dawn of the 21’st century.
The highest purpose of medicine is rectification of the soul for the sake of cultural change, and for the sake of evolution itself. Every other goal, as significant as they may, comes after.