Our Philosophy

The cornerstones of what we teach at LCTA

The broad definition of TCM

At LCTA we teach an understanding of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) with a broad definition. There is a narrow definition of TCM which describes it as a mechanistic means of treating conditions rather than people, used by some during the second half of the twentieth century in post-Cultural Revolution China. At LCTA, in common with most other countries in Europe and America, we use a much broader definition of TCM than this. Following the classical Chinese medicine texts, we see TCM as being underpinned by two major concepts: Yin Yang and Five Elements, the Five Elements in discussion here being firmly rooted in the classics and as described in the Yellow Emperor’s Canon, written in China in the fourth century BCE. We see TCM as also including all the other tools in the Chinese medicine toolbox of diagnostic and treatment techniques: an understanding of the Tao, Yin and Yang, the Three Treasures, the Four Levels, the Five Elements, the Six Divisions, the Seven Emotions, the Eight Principles and the Zang Fu Patterns. Using whichever tool is the most suitable for the patient at the time, and often a combination of tools, practitioners learn to work with the body and mind of the patient, helping the patient to heal and learn.

You can rest assured - at LCTA you will learn how to use all of the tools in your box, not just one or two, and you will be fully equipped to take your practice and your further study forward in whatever direction you choose.

The Five Element tool in the toolbox

When people first come across Chinese medicine, they may mistakenly think that as a student they will learn either Five Elements or TCM.

This view is too simplistic. TCM is described above, and it is clear that the Five Elements is just one of many tools in the Chinese medicine diagnostic and treatment toolbox. At LCTA we teach the Five Elements as it accords with the classics and what we teach is firmly rooted in the core classical medical text of the Yellow Emperor’s Canon. We teach all the essential correspondences of the elements (Wood for example: anger, springtime, growth, flexibility, sour taste, etc) but we do not teach the concept of the causative factor (CF), because it is not supported in the classics. At LCTA our experience is that this too prescriptive. We prefer not to label people with an elemental tag, but instead we prefer to honour the dynamic nature of the Five Elements by observing the tendency we all have to change with circumstances and through time. We recognise that although each of us may resonate more with some elements than others, having a habit of expressing ourselves elementally and emotionally some ways more than others, this is not cast in stone: it changes with time, it changes with our moods, with stimuli, with different relationships. So we use an understanding of the Five Elements to add richness to our treatment and relationship skills, but in a classical and subtle way. At LCTA we use the Five Elements and their correspondences to shed light on the background to patients’ conditions. For instance, where an emotion is expressed inappropriately (eg, if you get unreasonably angry about things, or if you don’t stand up for yourself when you need to), or where a physical condition relates to a particular elemental pattern (eg, when a condition responds to a season or a particular type of food). We also use it to encourage students to explore their own personal issues, getting them to understand how they respond and why. We all have expressions of all five of the elements, healthy and otherwise. Learning to recognise these in ourselves and in our patients sheds light on our own personal development, and enables us to develop skills of patient management. Through this increased understanding, we learn more about how the patient is presenting themselves, what elements they respond to, where treatments could best focus, and how as practitioners we can contact our own elements at will to improve relationships with patients.

You can read more on the history of Chinese medicine here.