Ted J. Kaptchuk > Quotes

“The Non-Corporeal Soul increases tolerance and acceptance of the pain sensation, which paradoxically automatically reduces pain’s noxiousness and intolerableness. The more room for pain, the less it hurts. For the Non-Corporeal Soul, pain and suffering are not something to flee, but a catalyst for the authentication of humanity and the generation of human kindness.”
― Ted Kaptchuk, The Web That Has No Weaver: Understanding Chinese Medicine

“People resist being put into categories.”
― Ted Kaptchuk, The Web That Has No Weaver : Understanding Chinese Medicine

“To Western medicine, understanding an illness means uncovering a distinct entity that is separate from the patient’s being; to Chinese medicine, understanding means perceiving the relationships among all the patient’s signs and symptoms in the context of his or her life.”
― Ted Kaptchuk, The Web That Has No Weaver: Understanding Chinese Medicine

“The Chinese physician, in contrast, directs his or her attention to the complete physiological and psychological individual. All relevant information, including the symptom as well as the patient’s other general characteristics, is gathered and woven together until it forms what Chinese medicine calls a “pattern of disharmony.” This pattern of disharmony describes a situation of “imbalance” in a patient’s body.”
― Ted Kaptchuk, The Web That Has No Weaver: Understanding Chinese Medicine

“Chinese medicine considers important certain aspects of the human body and personality that are not significant to Western medicine.”
― Ted Kaptchuk, The Web That Has No Weaver: Understanding Chinese Medicine

“Illness contains the seed of health.”
― Ted Kaptchuk, The Web That Has No Weaver: Understanding Chinese Medicine

“To return to the couple, let’s assume a disharmonious relationship in which one partner is excessively aggressive and the other excessively passive. This situation can have three possible outcomes. They sit down and talk it out, agreeing to a rearrangement of attitudes (i.e., they rebalance their relationship); or one day the passive partner gets fed up and waits for the other with an ax (i.e., a radical transformation of Yin into Yang occurs); or they separate, putting an end to the relationship.”
― Ted Kaptchuk, The Web That Has No Weaver: Understanding Chinese Medicine

“I have adopted the perspective that healing must embody an art with a compelling and even poetic message.”
― Ted Kaptchuk, The Web That Has No Weaver: Understanding Chinese Medicine