Pointed techniques: an experience of acupuncture and western medicine [Perspective]

At the end of twenty minutes Jenny came back. I felt warm and relaxed. She told me I wouldn’t feel anything when she took out the needles but I did. I felt like the part of me that had been forced open popped back into place again. When I sat up, I felt better. My headache was gone and I felt rested. My friend had fallen asleep in the corner. He also felt better.

I couldn’t say whether I felt better because of the needles or because of the warmth and the peacefulness.

In Western medicine, we hold our treatments to the same standards as our understanding of disease. Our treatments have to really work, and they have to work in a way that makes sense with how we understand disease. The point of a randomized clinical trial (RCT), preferably with blinding and placebos, is that it isolates the intended intervention as the sole causal agent. To put it another way, an RCT proves that giving a patient a drug alone will help. This belief is part of what makes Western medicine so powerful, and part of what makes it so popular. One implication of an RCT is that, for example, we can improve someone’s heart disease even if that person does not change their diet or exercise. Our drugs are little change capsules. This is powerful and seductive.

The narrative power of acupuncture and much of complementary medicine is that it focuses on the patient experience. The narrative power of Western medicine is that it focuses on what’s really happening. In the cases where these overlap, Western medicine works, sometimes really well. In the cases where the relationship is not clear, Western medicine may not work. It may tell us that our pain is not linked with a serious disease that needs treatment. To put it another way, Western medicine has the advantage of rigorously proving itself right – but it can also prove you wrong.

My experience with acupuncture suggests that its idea of ‘healthy’ and ‘diseased’ are much more linked to patient experience than to an objective physical reality. As a patient I found this confusing but also liberating. In the end, the question of whether the needles alone made me feel better is not a question that an acupuncturist asks. She asks whether her patients feel better.

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