Pacific College of Oriental Medicine Alumni

To have peace in one's soul is the greatest happiness. - Oriental Wisdom

Practice Building

Continuing Ed
Pacific Symposium
Additional CEU Events
CEU Tapes

Alumni events

Alumni Profiles

Oriental Medicine News

Update Your Info

Alumni Email List

Request Records

Download Graduate Exit Interview

Alumni Minutes

Classifieds
Jobs
Opportunities
Office Space
For Sale

Essential Contact

By Marly Wexler, L.Ac.

My first exposure to Chinese Medicine came in the early 1980s in San Diego. I was teaching dance in Los Angeles and I drove to San Diego to set up a few workshops. The woman I stayed with noticed that my dog, Marou, was limping. She suggested I see an acupuncturist to help with the pain. Marou was 15 years old and had been diagnosed with hip dysplasia. The vet had said there was nothing he could do. Eager to diminish Marou’s suffering, I made an appointment for her. At the time, this practitioner was one of only a few in practice. We went to his home and were led up to the attic where he had a very warm and inviting office. After talking a bit and describing the problem, this gentle man placed some needles into Marou’s hip. She lay still for the time the needles were in and when they were removed, she began walking, her movements easy and the limp gone. Although the limp eventually returned, that experience had a powerful impact on me. In fact, it is the story I tell people who have questions about the placebo effect in our medicine. It is also where my interest in Chinese medicine began.

Over the years, I’ve been fortunate. I’ve had the opportunity to observe many extraordinary practitioners, plus I was lucky enough to study with Dr. Richard Tan for several years.

I worked hard to get a strong footing in theory and its application, but my real interest lay in the connection that can occur between patient and practitioner. How much therapeutic impact does this have? This was one of many notions orbiting the question, “how does healing occur?”

I used my own practice as a means of research, making a conscious effort to develop my ability to truly listen when a patient was speaking. Instead of only hearing about the symptoms presented in words, I allowed myself to become deeply receptive to and present with the person before me.

As the years passed and my experience grew, I began to realize the enormity of the potential in something as simple as connecting deeply with another human being. Making a connection in effect dissolves barriers of separation. It dismisses the notion of the need to keep therapeutic distance, as many medical practitioners are taught to do—supposedly for the well-being of their patients. Each of us has heard patients’ stories about practitioners who don’t listen, speak down to them, and generally leave them feeling worse than when they arrived. We have also gotten feedback from patients about how great it is when someone finally does listen to them. The effect of feeling appreciated and cared for has been found to have strong effects on the chemistry of the body, heightening immune responses and creating a host of physiological and psychological benefits.

My specialty is the treatment of pain. And what years of practice and observation revealed was that much of the pain that people complained of had a direct relationship to what was happening in their lives. Not only did it appear in a person’s feeling of being disconnected to others, but also in their ability to successfully deal with stress.

Over time, and with a wealth of knowledge from my teacher, using acupuncture to help my patients proved relatively easy. My interest, however, was not in dealing with the symptoms alone, but in trying to trace a pathway to their origin. If I could do that, I might be able to assist my patients in the understanding of how their symptoms came to be, thereby potentially offering them the ability to contribute consciously to the dismantling of one pattern and into the creation of another, more health-affirming one.

Since I was a child, I’ve been able to feel what other people felt. Although for much of my life this ability did not seem like a gift, through the study of Chinese Medicine, I learned how to use it for the benefit of others. This then was my gateway. Taking the pulse allowed me entry into that person’s realm, their energetic field. After years of meditation and other practices designed to quiet my mind and strengthen my heart, I was able to become very still internally. I could, while taking the pulse, notice flickers of emotion or sensations of destiny or pain somewhere in my own body. I would use this and other information about who that person was energetically to determine the best course of treatment. My goal was to try and assist my patients not only with acupuncture and herbs, but also by teaching them to become conscious of the holdings in their own body. My intention was and is for the patient to become empowered and not dependent on me for their sense of well-being.

Presenting what I found was not always easy. It took me years to become skillful with delivery of the information. And I had to learn as well that there were people who had no interest in my grand discoveries. This form of practice is not for all patients. Nor is it for all practitioners. How we practice is always a matter of choice. There is room enough for many approaches to healing. Working directly with the energy of the patient is what I feel compelled to do. To address the flesh yes, but first and foremost, to encounter that which animates the flesh. Call it Shen, Qi, or what you will, there is something that is the same yet unique in all of us and it within that realm that I am pressed to attend.

I now teach a class called Essential Contact. It came about as a result of some students watching me take the pulse as I was supervising in the student clinic at Pacific College of Oriental Medicine in San Diego. I was there in part to offer additional methods in the treatment of pain, which I had learned from Dr. Tan. My manner of taking the pulse had become a habit by then. It didn’t occur to me that it would be of interest to others. However, when the students approached and asked if I would teach the, how to do what I was doing, I decided that I had to find out if, in fact, this could be taught. Much to my delight, I found that it could. The place inside of them that could retrieve the information I had learned to gather could be awakened. That was all it took to direct my students toward themselves, toward their own ability to connect deeply with someone, retrieve information and use it for good. Through these wonderful students, I came to see that that ability is inside each of us. It is often only sleeping.