Musings on a Name: Engaging Vitality
By Dan Bensky
About a decade ago when we were beginning in earnest to teach our fusion of osteopathic palpation and East Asian medicine on a more regular basis, Chip and I were casting around to find a name for this work. I’d been teaching some of this material since the early 90’s under such catchy names as “Recursive Learning and Palpation” and “Expanding Palpatory Awareness in Oriental Medicine” while Chip had used better, but still insufficient names like “The Learning Hand.” We have always had some difficulty in communicating what our work was about and its utility to people who had not worked with us personally or taken any of our courses what we were trying to convey and how it could be useful. I have to admit that (which in some ways that is still true today) and we thought if we could encapsulate our message in a name it would help with that issue..
I don’t remember where we were, but we were preparing for perhaps the first real two module course here in the Seattle area and felt that we had to come up with some kind of name that would be memorable, accurate, and convey some of the import of what we are conveying. While brainstorming with Marguerite and myself, Chip came up with the idea of calling it “Engaging Vitality.” I’d like to say that we were aware immediately of how perfectly apt this term was, but actually at the time it just seemed good enough to put on the brochure for the classes. It took a while for me to realize how Chip had, as per usual, connected with the heart of the matter; also, as per usual, he had done so in a way that could be opaque for the uninitiated. That is to say, that on the one hand these two words do an excellent job of encapsulating the essence of our approach, but on the other hand how they do so is not obvious even to many people who have studied this work closely and use it on a daily basis in their clinics. Hence, this short essay.
What is Engaging Vitality?
It is the application of some osteopathic concepts and techniques to the understanding and practice of Traditional East Asian medicine [TEAM] in a reflective manner, so that not only do these concepts and techniques expand and clarify some aspects of TEAM, but the basic concepts and practice of TEAM feedback and illuminate the utilized aspects of osteopathy. This is one aspect of the back and forth, that Chip used to call the ‘dance,’ that marks this work on a variety of levels.
What is the goal of the work that we call Engaging Vitality?
With this fusion of concepts and techniques, we are better able to perceive and interact with the patient and their qi. Among other things, this allows us to feel:
where to start the treatment, focus the treatment in the beginning
which channels are involved in this particular person’s problem at this particular time,
locate the precise point location,
grasp the state of the patient’s fluids, and (in a ‘dance’) check
check in real time the organism’s response to any interventions we perform to see in real time whether or not the treatment is going in the right direction
What are the side-benefits of Engaging Vitality?
These direct sensory experiences allow us to see TEAM as dealing with real and alive human beings, instead of a set of abstract concepts. The qi, yang, channels, viscera, etc. can be experienced and intimately tied to the physical presence of our patients, which eliminates some of the abstract conceptual games so often played in our profession. Similarly, conventions (such as having fixed channels and acupuncture point locations) are shown to be just silly once you can feel the channels and points. This makes the practice of TEAM a much more lively and fun experience for the practitioner and, we believe, more effective for the patient. This latter, of course, is the main point.
So, let’s get back to what we started with — why do we call it Engaging Vitality?
The core meaning of ‘vitality’ is the power giving continuance of life. This can be seen from a TEAM perspective to encompass all of the aspects that keep people not just alive, but lively — such as the qi, blood, and fluids. In our work we “engage” with these aspects by interacting with them, becoming involved with them, and establish meaningful contact with them. This engaging with the vitality of the person is the ‘dance’ of diagnosis and treatment that makes up our work.