Being the needle

Oops three minutes late in posting now yesterday’s blip. It has been an odd day. I have been in a dialogue with a practitioner in the USA . It came partly in response to a post she made about getting creative instead of staring into space - be in touch with your patients at least once a week because they still need you, you are an important person in their life so tell them about your day - etc .
Quite frankly I couldn’t think of anything worse so I said ‘ why on earth would a patient want to know about me?!I’m just a person who sticks in needles and burns stuff. I think this phrase mortified her and she did dig deeper. From there sparked a lovely dialogue between two practitioners of the same lineage but with two very different
styles, both of which are patient centred. She is all for the therapizing, counselling , sharing of herself to relate to her patient. I am very opposite. She couldn’t understand why I thought it good not to share anything of my personal life with my patients. To her this is non relational and she advocated practitioner offerings of ones own experience as’being the needle’. This is my reply
‘ I love the phrase ‘being the needle’ - to me this means the ultimate practitioner self cultivation where the Acupuncturist reflects the patient , or is at one with the patient and the room becomes the patient’s universe. If the practitioner is on the edges of that universe doing the work , as if invisible to the patient while looking into the patient’s eyes, the practitioner becomes the needle.
So it is entirely possible to touch a patient or be in touch with a patient without self reference. It is a challenge and another way of working. ‘
If a patient thinks of me as someone on the periphery who just does their treatment- Or doesn’t think of me at all - I am happy with this because it means I am closer to being the needle.
It was a lovely dialogue but did not convince me of the benefit to be touch with my patients with little snippets about my life , thoughts , etc every week . I still think this is an act of self marketing , not selfless support , so as to keep in the patient’s mind during the Covid crisis in the hope they will return when it’s over. I will leave that to the universe .
But the interaction did inspire me to look at clinic software to take the work out of any patient communications over the coming months and beyond .
For now I’m going to sleep with my needle in my hand - ever ready !