For thousands of years, the Chinese have recognized that the five elements: wood, fire, earth, metal and water exist in everything and everyone and are essential to life. Classical five-element acupuncture states that each person is born with or develops early in life as an imbalance in the natural functioning of these five elements. This imbalance becomes the underlying cause of illness.

Classical five-element acupuncture differs from other acupuncture systems in that it focuses on the diagnosis and treatment of a patient’s fundamental causative factor: the element of five that is the source of imbalance. The causative factor is assessed through sensory information provided by the patient’s body, mind and spirit. Each of the elements has an associated smell, color, sound and emotion, which can be perceived when a particular element is out of balance. Accurate diagnosis and treatment of the causative factor is key to classic five element acupuncture. In addition, this elegant system recognizes that the health of the body, mind and spirit of each unique individual must be taken into account in order to fully understand and treat the cause of disease. For example, no two patients are ever treated the same.

Professor J. R. Worsley Acupuncture with five elements, rooted in ancient wisdom and adapted by Professor J.R. Worsley for the modern world, is an effective and unique medical system that diagnoses and treats the cause of disease. The ancients observed how the fundamental elements of creation, wood, fire, earth, metal and water, create the natural mysterious order of life. When these five elements manifest in us in a balanced and harmonious state, we experience health, well-being and the joy of living.

Professor Worsley realized that every person has one real cause of illness. He called this unique, original and distinctive discovery the causative factor (CF). When the CF is diagnosed and treated, the cause of the disease disappears and the symptoms indicating the imbalance disappear.

Worsley’s in-depth understanding of the mind, how to experience its presence in us, and his revolutionary discovery of the CF are the means by which WA diagnoses and causes the diseases that arise when the mind is not fully integrated into our lives and treats. This lack of integration causes much misfortune, alienation and illness in the modern world. Worsley was a pioneer and devoted his life to teaching that in most cases the cause of physical, mental, and spiritual distress lies in us today rather than in external circumstances. This style of acupuncture elegantly restores our balance and harmony and brings us back to the health and wellbeing that is our natural right.