Full Day Training in Berlin

This training can be taken on its own or combined at a discount with the December 5+6 weekend clinical training.

Diagnosis Is the Key to Successful Herbal Prescribing

Most Chinese herbal medicine programs devote substantial time to teaching individual herbs, herb combinations, formulas, and pattern differentiation. We learn what the herbs do, the indications of classical formulas, and the lists of signs and symptoms associated with different patterns.

Yet the essential clinical skill of moving from a complex patient to an accurate herbal formula is often overlooked—as though knowing enough about herbs and formulas will naturally enable us to prescribe them successfully.

Real patients rarely present as neatly as the patterns described in our textbooks. Their signs and symptoms may appear contradictory. They may fit several familiar patterns at once—or none of them completely. How do we determine what is central and what is secondary? How do we move from a long, complicated intake to a diagnosis that is clear, precise, and inclusive of the patient’s entire presentation?

Clear diagnosis is the foundation of confident prescribing. The diagnosis determines the treatment method, and the treatment method determines the formula.

When the diagnostic process is followed carefully, staying close to the reality of what is actually before us, we do not need to search through reference books hoping to “find” our patient. We do not need to force the presentation into a familiar pattern or construct a complicated prescription intended to cover every possibility. The signs and symptoms begin to form a coherent physiological picture. The diagnosis emerges—and the formula reveals itself.

In this full-day class, Sharon Weizenbaum will present a grounded, classically based approach to diagnosis and herbal prescribing. Drawing upon more than forty years of clinical experience, she will demonstrate how to move from the many details of an intake to a succinct and reliable diagnosis, treatment method, and precisely constructed herbal formula.

Seeing What Is Actually There

A central theme of the day will be learning to see each sign and symptom for what it actually is before assigning it to a familiar pattern. Low-back pain is not automatically kidney deficiency. Irritability is not necessarily liver qì stagnation. Loose stool does not always indicate spleen deficiency, and thirst does not invariably signify heat.

Like drawing a plant, accurate diagnosis begins with careful observation. If we draw what we think a leaf should look like, it will not appear real. When we attend closely to the leaf that is actually before us—with all its irregularities—its form begins to reveal itself. The same is true in the clinic.

Students will learn how to:

• distinguish examination, clinical data, pattern identification, and diagnosis
• recognize common habits that lead to uncertain or inaccurate prescribing
• separate what is directly observable from the conclusions ordinarily attached to it
• determine which findings are central and which are secondary
• assess the relative significance of constitution, signs, symptoms, tongue, pulse, and abdomen
• distinguish yīn and yáng as the first foundation of diagnosis
• organize the presentation through classical physiology and the Six Conformations
• articulate the pathophysiology as a coherent whole
• allow the diagnosis to reveal the treatment method and formula

Learning Through Clinical Cases

Throughout the day, Sharon will use detailed clinical cases to make the diagnostic process visible. Students will work through complex presentations in which the symptoms could easily be assigned to several apparently plausible patterns.

Rather than selecting a diagnosis and then making a case for it, we will begin with what can actually be observed. We will examine how many careful observations—and only the reasoning necessary to connect them—allow the underlying physiological pattern to emerge.

We will follow each case from the initial presentation through the differentiation of yīn and yáng, the physiology of the Six Conformations, diagnosis, treatment principle, classical formula, modifications, and dosage. The cases will demonstrate how the same complaint may arise through very different physiological dynamics—and why treating the complaint without understanding those dynamics can lead us away from the appropriate formula.

The Intake as a Living Process
In Zhāng Zhòngjǐng’s Píng Mài Fǎ (Balancing the Pulse Methods), he writes:

上工望而知之
中工問而知之
下工脈而知之

“The highest level of medicine is gaining knowledge through observation.
The next level is gaining knowledge through asking.
The lowest level is gaining knowledge through the pulse alone.”

Diagnosis is a layered process that begins before the first question is asked. When herbs and formulas have been studied deeply, potential formula patterns may emerge spontaneously through looking diagnosis. Focused questioning and palpation can then be used to explore, refine, confirm, or challenge those initial perceptions.

The goal is not to fit the patient into something we already know. It is to stay close to the reality of the patient, understand the presentation through classical physiology, and allow the diagnosis to become clear.

When the diagnosis is clear, the treatment method becomes clear. When the treatment method is clear, the formula reveals itself.

By the end of the day, students will have a more reliable and practical process for moving from a complex patient to a clear diagnosis and a confidently written herbal formula.

Sharon Weizenbaum graduated from the New England School of Acupuncture in 1983. She has studied many times in China with a focus on gynecology, obstetrics and, in the last 15 years, Classic Formulas. Sharon teaches internationally, publishes articles, translates much of her own course material and is the director of the clinic White Pine Healing Arts and the primary instructor of the White Pine Graduate Mentorship Program.

_{Refund Policy: Students cancelling up to 2 weeks in advance will be provided a 50% refund.  No refunds will be provided less than 2 weeks before the event.}