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Monday, July 20, 2009
On looking at the big picture
How often do we hear this saying? What does it mean? How do we accomplish this? And really, why look at the big picture? I'm not sure I have answers, but it does relate to how Chinese medicine is practiced.
This past weekend I took the opportunity to go up in Portland's aerial tram (the weather was gorgeous, and I hadn't yet been since moving to this city) to see the city from up high. It made me think just how different the city looks and feels when you can see the whole of it from the sky. The whole thing seemed to me a living, breathing organism with roadways as arteries, the movement of the cars, blood flowing through the veins (it all comes back to anatomy, doesn't it?). From up there I could see how it all worked together - how and where the highways join, the placement of bridges over the river, the concentrations of buildings versus the concentrations of greenery, the mountains in the distance.
I'm not writing this to wax poetic on the beauty of Portland (though I do find it a beautiful city), but I did want to share how looking at the city as a whole struck me. Usually when I find myself downtown I don't see how all the frustrating one-way streets, bridge on-ramps (which are never where I think they are), buildings upon buildings that block my view, are functional or beautiful. Generally I am annoyed at having to be there, have trouble getting around and can only see what is in front of me. From a distance though, it all made a lot more sense - because I could see the big picture.
This is a bit like diagnosis in Chinese medicine. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is built on a pattern based approach rather than a symptomatic one. This is one of the main differences in paradigms between TCM and biomedicine. Both certainly have their places and strengths (and in my personal opinion, work together beautifully) but take drastically different approaches.
Many patients wonder why when they come in with a specific complaint (say, insomnia) we ask all sorts of other questions about seeming unrelated things like digestion, pain, ear ringing, night , sweating, emotional well-being...etc. We do this is because we're looking for a pattern in the big picture. While you may not see a connection between various symptoms (lets say insomnia and chronic low back pain) they might be related as
you are one complete, inter-related person. So, we need to know all about you to find the other pieces of this pattern and figure out what the root cause of your symptom is.
Looking at the big picture is not the only perspective, but certainly an important one. It lets us see possibilities that are different than the ones we may see at close range. What are some instances where the big picture made you see things differently?
~Alexis
This past weekend I took the opportunity to go up in Portland's aerial tram (the weather was gorgeous, and I hadn't yet been since moving to this city) to see the city from up high. It made me think just how different the city looks and feels when you can see the whole of it from the sky. The whole thing seemed to me a living, breathing organism with roadways as arteries, the movement of the cars, blood flowing through the veins (it all comes back to anatomy, doesn't it?). From up there I could see how it all worked together - how and where the highways join, the placement of bridges over the river, the concentrations of buildings versus the concentrations of greenery, the mountains in the distance.
I'm not writing this to wax poetic on the beauty of Portland (though I do find it a beautiful city), but I did want to share how looking at the city as a whole struck me. Usually when I find myself downtown I don't see how all the frustrating one-way streets, bridge on-ramps (which are never where I think they are), buildings upon buildings that block my view, are functional or beautiful. Generally I am annoyed at having to be there, have trouble getting around and can only see what is in front of me. From a distance though, it all made a lot more sense - because I could see the big picture.
This is a bit like diagnosis in Chinese medicine. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is built on a pattern based approach rather than a symptomatic one. This is one of the main differences in paradigms between TCM and biomedicine. Both certainly have their places and strengths (and in my personal opinion, work together beautifully) but take drastically different approaches.
Many patients wonder why when they come in with a specific complaint (say, insomnia) we ask all sorts of other questions about seeming unrelated things like digestion, pain, ear ringing, night , sweating, emotional well-being...etc. We do this is because we're looking for a pattern in the big picture. While you may not see a connection between various symptoms (lets say insomnia and chronic low back pain) they might be related as
you are one complete, inter-related person. So, we need to know all about you to find the other pieces of this pattern and figure out what the root cause of your symptom is.
Looking at the big picture is not the only perspective, but certainly an important one. It lets us see possibilities that are different than the ones we may see at close range. What are some instances where the big picture made you see things differently?
~Alexis
Labels: big picture, chinese medicine, pattern diagnosis, Portland, TCM
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