East Meets West: The Link between Far Eastern TCM and Western Manual Therapy

The manual therapies such as the osteopathic or massage practice developed in the West appear on first instance to be less related to the Eastern energetic methods. However, the empirical comparison reveals surprisingly many inter-connected aspects that can be useful to the diagnostic and therapeutic objectives of the therapist. The most important prerequisite is the recognition of the interplay between material and energy metabolism of the living organism. In spite of the cumbersome work required for the intelligibility of the Chinese codification of these procedures, the universality and practical use of Traditional Chinese Medicine is uncontested.