Oriental Medicine, OD and whole systems change

• Welcome to a Dialogue on Whole-Scale™ Change with Kathleen Dannemiller by John Grohol, 11/14/97
  • Whole-scale change dialogue by Kathleen Dannemiller, 11/14/97
    • Whole-Scale Change musings by Kathleen Dannemiller, 1/9/98
      
      

Well, Kathy, apparently your writing on this topic was what it took to get a respone! Two collegues of mine read your item and told me about it...so you may hear from more than one of us!

There's been lots of interesting work by practioners of both OD and oriental medecine applying the whole systems models that's behind acupuncture to healing systems larger than the individual human body. Five Elements accupuncture practioners in particular seem smitten with the idea. In fact, over 2,000 years ago The Yellow Emperor's Classic on Internal Medecine discussed "healing" the body politic and the Emperor's court using the Five Elements.

Several years back, our organization was looking for a systems model to train our internal consultants. After seeing some great stuff from the MIT folks and Pegasus, we decided a more "organic" model, one based on living systems rather than mechanistic metaphors was more to our liking. That's when we found the excellent work done by Nancy Post of Post Enterprises in Phiadelphia. (The last number I have for them is (215)438-8590.) Also,the Accupuncture School in Columbia Maryland runs a year long program called "Sophia" that teaches how to use the 5 elements model and healing pricipals to intervene in their own lives, families, organizations and communities.

Our internal consultants found learning the model easy at first, but challenging. All of us immediately discovered new ways to manage our own energy as consultants in ways that were healthier for us and more effective for our clients.

Like most nature-based systems, the five elements model seemed initially simple....and the longer we worked with it, applying it to increasingly chronic, complex systems issues, the more we found we have to learn. This, like so much of our work has become a part of my ongoing "practice"--not just a single tool to be learned quickly.

Bottom line--there's a wealth of still-developing work out there that looks at using the same systems models, values, assumptions and strategies on which accupuncture was based to create health for groups and organizations.

• Oriental Medicine and OD - Response by Kathie Dannemiller, 2/28/98