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The Human Body Can Heal in Astonishing Ways
Even for energy healers, people’s sudden recoveries can be hard to explain
The first acupuncture patient I ever worked with on my own was a woman who had broken both of her legs. She had been visiting a fire station with her women’s group and was encouraged, ill-advisedly as it turned out, to slide down the fire pole. When I met her, she was still walking with two canes — a full year after her accident.
I was just beginning my third year of a four-year master’s degree in acupuncture and Chinese medicine in San Diego, California, and a long way from my native Britain. Before treating this woman, I had only ever performed acupuncture on a patient as an assistant to a more senior student; before that, I’d practiced on sewn bags of rice. Though I did have a supervisor, he was also watching several other students, so I was practicing acupuncture unaccompanied for the first time.
I forged ahead with my first patient, putting needles in a selection of basic acupuncture points to address her pain. The woman was completely still and silent throughout. I had no sense as to whether anything I was doing was having any effect at all. The session seemed rather unremarkable — disappointingly so — until the end. What happened next will sound too good to be true, but bear with me: The…
