Rethinking the Panaceia

It is not quite true that there is a pill for everything. In the West, what we see most frequently are symptomatic treatments that provide temporary control. The idea of a pill that could solve everything at once and forever is not feasible — at least, not yet.

Take, for example, mood and neurovegetative disorders. There is evidence that mood is influenced by several complex physiological axes, particularly the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, the sympathetic-adrenal axis, and the microbiota-gut-brain axis.

Any alteration in how these systems operate and communicate can impact mood. And, as they are evidently interconnected, the complexity is such that achieving complete pharmacological control remains highly unlikely.

However, it is important to recognise that not all mental health issues require medication. There is a wide range of techniques and fields of study that can complement psychiatry, including psychology, physical education, neuroscience, and integrative medicine.

This is where acupuncture comes in, with its focus on Shen. Responsible for all higher mental functions — including consciousness, memory, emotion, and creativity — the balance of Shen is fundamental to maintaining mental health. Long before the West conceived the modern understanding of physiological axes and before the term "stress" became widely known, Chinese Medicine had already identified that Shen was affected by factors such as environment, lifestyle, diet, and emotions.

Chinese Medicine described Shen imbalance as a state in which individuals experienced symptoms such as anxiety, depression, insomnia, mental confusion, and emotional agitation. It also distinguished this from a balanced Shen, where individuals displayed mental clarity, emotional stability, and overall well-being.

In my practice, I strive to honour this legacy — strengthening individuals physically while also helping them face the challenges of daily life so that their minds can express themselves in a healthy way, with courage and resilience. I firmly believe that acupuncture treatment should prioritise the balance of Shen as part of a human-centred approach to care.

Comments

When Shawn Mendes Became a Lifeline

When my father fell ill in his final days, the lyrics of Shawn Mendes’ In My Blood became an unexpected refuge, helping me process the reality unfolding before me. The song’s plea — its raw, urgent cry against the weight of helplessness — resonated in a way that felt almost too personal. “Help me, it’s like the walls are caving in” — those words captured the suffocating dread that gripped me in the small hours, waiting for news, hoping for a miracle I already knew would not come. The song does not offer easy comfort; nor does it deny the pain of endurance. Instead, it acknowledges the struggle — the desperate search for strength when every instinct urges collapse. “I just wanna give up, but I can’t.” That was it, exactly. The exhaustion, the emotional erosion, the moments when hope felt like a cruel joke. And yet, beneath it all, an unspoken defiance: the fight continues, not because it is easy, but because surrender is unthinkable. The grief that followed those long hours ...

The Quiet Battle of Becoming

Sometimes I write selfish pages. Not out of greed, nor vanity — no. I write them as if whispering to myself in the dark, so I don’t forget. Because forgetting is easy. The noise of the world is thick, sticky, clinging to the skin and numbing the senses. And in this blur of days, of duties, of silences swallowed whole, I must remind myself of what truly matters. Life isn’t a straight line, nor a grand revelation. It is a slow unravelling, a peeling away of what isn’t yours until you find what is. Never stop fighting, they say, until you arrive at your destined place. But what is destiny if not the place where you are most yourself? And how do you know when you’ve arrived? You don’t. You just keep moving, sculpting yourself with each step, shedding skins that no longer fit. There must be an aim, a north, a whisper calling you forward. Otherwise, what is effort but exhaustion? With purpose, even suffering holds meaning. The wind scatters those who walk without direction, but t...

The Shape of Thought

Gustav Klimt once said, “Art is a line around your thoughts.” A line — thin as a whisper, trembling yet deliberate — emerges from nothingness. It does not impose itself. It does not command. It is barely there, yet it holds. It is the first breath of form, the fragile boundary between the unsaid and the spoken. Without it, thought is a flicker in the dark, a thing half-lived, dissolving before it can be known. A vision stirs. Not summoned, not controlled. It arrives unbidden — whole yet veiled, elusive yet certain. It lingers at the edge of perception, pressing gently, insistently, against the mind’s quiet. It cannot be seized outright. To reach for it is to risk shattering it; to hesitate is to watch it dissolve. And so, the line must be drawn. But not too soon. Not too rigidly. It must breathe, as thought itself breathes, as meaning unfolds. The hand moves, uncertain yet assured, guided by something beyond logic. An intelligence older than language, something that knows ...

The Hyggelig Journey

Search This Blog