Dealing with Children and Parents as Acupuncturists

We work with children that are in trouble and with their parents who hope to find a solution. It is a delicate situation: our paediatric practice may be very demanding in terms of clinical interaction. The relationship is part of the treatment. How Classics give great attention to the encounter of patient and practitioner. Ways to relate to parents – in terms of behaviour and communication, but starting from the exploration of what the interaction moves inside us. We focus on the situations in which we feel puzzled, exasperated, angry, inadequate, hopeless. Clinical cases. Contents: (1) Ethics - Every relationship is an exchange of qi: the quality of our qi influences the therapeutic encounter. Quotations from the Classics. (2) Therapeutic alliance - Need to co-work with the parents: the child’s qi is still closely connected to the parent’s qi. Dysfunctional habits. (1) Communication - The clinical interview starts from listening: keep quiet, receptive, accepting, soft – a yin attitude. Key-points to reach the patient. (2) The Treatment frame - Different quality and density of an acupuncture session, its separate space. Dealing with time, space, requests, cancellations, compensation. (3) Children and Needles - Respect, flexibility and determination. Creation of the “bubble of a qi space”. (1) Empathy - Understand, feel and share thoughts and emotions of another in a given situation. Also in case of “intolerable” parents. (2) Emptiness and wuwei - Importance of not-doing, abstaining, yin-pause.