More Than Needles

A Patient's Introduction to Holistic Care

by Ernest Krolick

Most patients arrive at acupuncture with a complaint and an expectation. Pain, fatigue, sleep that has stopped working, anxiety the medical system has run out of answers for. They expect needles. They expect those needles to fix what brought them in. What the classical Chinese medical tradition has always understood, and what most American practice has quietly set aside, is that the needles are one part of a much larger picture.