Acupuncture is a form of traditional Chinese medicine that seeks to let chi (or the negative life force) out of the body to improve a person’s health. It has been practiced for a period of more than 2,000 years. This is done by way of delicately inserting needles into various parts of the body in order to balance what the Chinese refer to as “yin and yang.”
Yin and yang are opposing forces that exist in the body and according to the philosophy espoused by the Chinese, they are the “two primal cosmic principles” that are alive and well in the universe. Yin stands for the female and passive side of the equation whereas yang is the more active and masculine side. It is believed that the Chinese emperor Fu His once told his people that the universe can only be in harmony when there is a balance between yin and yang. Legend has it that yang must always be the dominant one because it is the way nature intended it to be. In the classical version of the Chinese philosophy, yin and yang are references to the sides of a valley or hill that are shady and sunny. The two contrast each other and that is what makes them work together so well.
Traditional acupuncture has given rise to a health care procedure that did not get its start in Chinese but instead in France which involves the stimulation of the auricle which connects to the external ear to help do away with health problems that exist in other areas of the human body. This is a form of both diagnosis and treatment that at its root believes that the ear is the map that determines the health of all organs in the body. It is important to note that this claim has not been substantiated by any research studies to date.
Auriculotherapy unites together aspects of Western medicine with aspects of the Chinese method of healing to create auricular acupuncture, which many people believe does have merit to improving health conditions. In the same way that needles are inserted into particular parts of the body to help a particular health problem, in auriculotherapy, a needle is placed into a specific part of the ear, which is believed to correspond to that organ in question. This could be the case whether it is the liver, the kidneys, the stomach and so on. In this way auricular acupuncture is very close to another form of alternative medicine, which is reflexology. Reflexology deals predominantly with the feet and hands but in more modern times has broadened its reach to encompass the ears. Reflexologists believe that the feet are the map or the mirror of the human body. Auricular acupuncture is also similar in its execution to iridology, which espouses the belief that the iris of the eye provides the map of the human body.
Auriculotherapy can be broken down further into another category. There is such a thing as staplepuncture and this practice makes use of staples. In this way staples are strategically placed in key spots of an individual’s ear in the belief that it can help them kick a bad habit such as drinking or smoking.