CMA1001 - History and philosophy: Channels and points

Leader: Dr D Traum

Offered

Clayton First semester 2007 (Off-campus)

Synopsis

This unit deals with the Anatomy - the 'Channels and Points', and the History and Philosophy of Acupuncture, which is relevant to modern western medicine. Learning is aided by an audiotape, videotapes and selected readings from texts and journals.

Objectives

By the end of this unit candidates should be able to:

1. Reflect on the philosophy of acupuncture arising from the historical perspectives dealt with in the introduction in the course.
2. Describe the correspondences, and the laws of acupuncture and the way these laws work in practice.
3. Demonstrate that a lot of good simple acupuncture therapy can be practised without an in-depth knowledge of TCM, using a western medical approach.
4. Demonstrate that many of the more difficult patients in the western sense do in fact fit more simply into the TCM patterns and that it is in these patients that TCM is of immense value.
5. Be able to describe the course of each channel and its internal connections, describe the major points of the channel and the correct way of finding them, and their actions. Special points eg; influential points, alarm and associated points, area of influence points, source points and points which have a special influence on various bodily activities. They should also be able to describe the correspondences of each organ complex and hence embrace the understanding of the philosophy of acupuncture into this subject, within the western medical model of care.

Assessment

Journal (100%)