Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Given the two prior negative reviews, I feel its important to provide a balancing input, particularly since I did fully enjoy this small book.
There are hints given toward the end of this book about why he uses the term "imaging". With intentional experience and time devoted to Seem's style of evaluating the person, their meridians as a whole instead of just a few selected points, before touching in order to intuitively perceive ... he suggests that some people may learn to "see" energy coursing and the places where there might be obstructions. I agree the title may lead to a little disappointment. The book is more about trying to understand the deeper dynamics of energy management in the body and prodding of it by manual exam and acupuncture rather than "imaging" in the typical use of the word.
However, if one approaches the book with an open mind, there is a lot of helpful information here. It is not a comprehensive textbook on how to learn acupuncture, and does NOT pretend to be. It is assumed that one already has acquired the basics from some perspective such as TCM, 5-Elements or one of the physicians' medical acupuncture disciplines.
Bob Flaws, in his introduction to the book, describes Mark Seem as an acupuncturist's acupuncturist, referencing the fact that Seem has devoted his career and teaching to refining a particular form of acupuncture focusing on the body's innate energetic pathways that are independent of other "assists" such as herbal preparations. As such, this short book of about 100 pages, attempts to summarize a starting point for exploring acupuncture from an energetic framework. He intentionally speaks more as a philosopher and educator rather than a "technician", sharing the accumulated impressions he has gained over his career using a psychosomatic and phenomenologic approach.
His emphasize on recruiting patients to be responsible, active participants in the pursuit of their own healing, rather becoming the passive recipients of treatments or pills is refreshing. That's always a challenge no matter how much desired for most practitioners of the healing arts. He attempts to explain how he engages his patients in this process specifically for the medium of acupuncture. These efforts are quite valuable -- yet their significance may be lost when one is at the start of acupuncture training and still attempting to absorb the massive amount of required material. Its more the type of information to which one returns after reaching a plateau that prompts a need to re-think how one organizes their own approach to the discipline. I anticipate I will want to re-read it intermittently.
Seem's pre-acupuncture background was in philosophy and psychosomatics. He then trained in a Canadian school of French-Chinese energetic acupuncture. This approach became known in France dating back to the early 1900's due to the work of George Soulle' de Morant, a Frenchman who spent at least 2 decades in China, was fluent in Chinese having learning Mandarin as a child, and translated/catalogued many original manuscripts in order to document techniques of the pre-communist era while working with Chinese physicians and acupuncturists. de Morant was awarded the highest national Chinese award for civilians and was considered a Chinese Doctor among the Chinese. He eventually returned to Europe where he was known as the Father of Energetic Acupuncture. (Besides his books on acupuncture, de Morant was a prolific writer/translator on many different aspects of Chinese life and literature.)
This French-Chinese model differs from newer TCM approaches, which at least for awhile dominated China after the Maoist reform (1950's) and also dominated the American scene when acupuncture first migrated here. Seem's book does have several recognizable features in common with the training provided to physicians through the Helm's Institute, whose founder also trained in French-Chinese energetic acupuncture in France.
Mark Seem begins with a helpful historical review regarding the development of the different schools of acupuncture and why he personally became invested in the approach he uses. He is the founder of the Tri-Sate College of Acupuncture in New York City, and has been a major national leader in training and organizations for licensed acupuncturists. He acknowledges several other sources that have influenced the development of his style that an interested reader may want to pursue for further detail (such by those by Royston Lowe, Yves Requina and Kiiko Matsumoto. The latter being a particular good source for information on Japanese meridian work. )
There are a few summary tables and diagrams but no specific treatment protocols, in keeping with his phenomenological approach of following the message he encounters from the patient's body -- not some predetermined formulae attached to either an eastern or a western medical diagnosis. That's the point.
He broadly describes his journey through a treatment process from surface energetics, through tendinomuscular meridians and then to deeper interconnections among principal meridian and/or curious meridian pathways. I strongly anticipate that travelling with him through this journey will gain in meaning the more experience one gains with acupuncture if the commitment is to move beyond "cookbook recipes" for treatment protocols.
His other textbook which I have not yet read seems to likely be more comprehensive on the basics of his style, called BodyMind Energetics.
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Acupuncture Imaging: Perceiving the Energy Pathways of the BodyA practical guide to the bodymind-energetic approach of acupuncture
' Teaches readers to reorient their thinking in order to see, feel, and experience the energetic field of the body and psyche
' Explores French and Japanese influences on acupuncture and the resulting stylistic variations in the contemporarypractice of this ancient technique
' Includes guidance on treatment planning and implementation for practitioners and their patients
A pioneer in the field of body energetics, Mark Seem explains in Acupuncture Imaging how bodyworkers and their clients can develop a clear understanding of the energetic systems of the bodymind to arrive at a personal approach and treatment style in acupuncture and all other meridian therapies. He shows how to recast and reconceptualize physical, emotional, and psychological problems in terms of disrupted energy flow, enabling readers to see, feel, and experience these disturbances in a way that allows for change. By approaching the meridian systems in visual and sensory terms, a practitioner is able to tell the energetic 'story" that he or she is exploring with a patient, thereby guiding and assisting the healing process. Acupuncture Imaging will be of great help to students, teachers, practitioners, and patients of the diverse energetic and meridian therapies, particularly shiatsu and acupressure, as well as psychotherapists and those interested in Eastern concepts of medicine.
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