My goal in making this video is to describe how the evaluation and treatment of your child can be enhanced by using this concept of the spleen energy subcircuit to describe what’s going on with your child and some of the nuances of the particular influence the spleen energy has in young children from birth to around 5 years old. This is the type of discussion I have with parents in my own practice, and I want to share some of this perspective with you.

Click below to listen to audio only:

If you’d like to watch more videos on similar topics, go to the video library page on the Principles for Parents website.

As always, please leave your feedback and comments below.

My goal in making this video is to describe how using Chinese medicine principles in the evaluation and treatment of your child can be beneficial and I want to do it in plain language that everyone can understand. These are the types of discussions I have with parents in my own practice, and I want to share some of this perspective with you.

I encourage you to explore the Chinese medicine system even more on my website called Principles for Parents.

Click below to listen to audio only:


If you’d like to watch more videos on similar topics, go to the video library page on the Principles for Parents website.

If you are curious about my own private practice in Vancouver, Washington, our clinic website has more details, and it is called Points of Origin, PLLC.

Please leave your comments and feedback below. And stay tuned for more video episodes coming up on this topic and others.

In my practice I like to use the saying, “The more information, the better”. What I mean is that we can gain a lot more ground by being open to different systems, interpretations, and models of explanation, rather than just relying on one single description.

If we are evaluating a child with stomachaches, we must address the symptom and condition and try to elucidate the likely causes. However, often there is no discernible cause from a physiologic or anatomic standpoint. Then what do we do? I have stated in other places how I am in agreement with doing testing to make sure there are no obvious or hidden physical problems, like blockages, ulcers, growths, appendicitis, inflammatory bowel disease, etc. In the vast majority of cases, however, none of these are identified as the cause and we are left with no answers.

This is the situation where I believe a broader more holistic and energy derived description and evaluation comes in very handy. On my website I have given more information about the Chinese medicine system and how it addresses conditions found commonly in kids. There are specific groupings which bring together body organs and energy pathways in a coherent and clinically significant way, which I find extremely useful as a physician and I think can be very insightful information for parents to know.

In the Chinese medicine system, the stomach organ and channel are grouped with the large intestine, the lungs and the spleen. These four organs and channels essentially work together on the same circuit, and your child’s energy system must distribute or parcel out its energy in the most efficient and beneficial manner that it can in the context of your child’s daily life and experience.

I have found that when we open up the breadth and scope of our questioning and increase the potential topics of inquiry, our chances of finding the right causative explanation for something like stomachaches goes up dramatically.

So, the bottom line is this: Get an evaluation done to look for treatable and serious problems that could be going on with your child. But don’t stop there if those lab tests and procedures don’t reveal anything. It is important to keep looking for the causes, even if it takes you beyond the physical realm and into the arena where energy becomes the more useful explanation.

In my practice, I use a consciousness based system called BodyTalk which allows us to have access to those things which are only accessible through the energy medicine or consciousness based paradigm. I discuss these concepts in more detail in my ebook called Energy Medicine Principles for Parents and you can read more about the Chinese medicine system and your child on my website called Principles for Parents.

Another example to illustrate this point is found in music.  Could any of us imagine if only one form of music was considered acceptable, while all the other genres were excluded?  This would never fly in our society where choice is so highly revered. 

And yet, in the world of medicine, we stick to conformity and accept what we hear on television.  They tell us, if we have a certain condition, the best and only way to treat it is to take the next greatest medication on the market.  How many times have these medications ended up harming significant portions of the population because of side effects (either known or unknown)? 

To me, this is evidence of what can happen when the mistaken assumption is made that when something is good for some it must be good for all.

I am constantly made aware of how symptom oriented our society is.  We are so fixated on naming syndromes and diseases that we’ll even make some up to sound good on commercials and thereby draw in people looking for an answer to their problem.  I’m not saying these are not real conditions but I am questioning why a description of one or a collection of symptoms is elevated to the status of a disorder or disease. 

I think this is very misleading and should not be tolerated.  It simply obscures the underlying causative issue and delays the proper treatment, or in the worst case scenario leads to the lifelong postponement of even addressing or finding out what the underlying cause is.  I don’t think most people would elect to do this if they were given proper and complete information from the outset.

I have learned through my clinical experience and my own study of energy medicine principles that this huge missing piece of the puzzle cannot be kept from the public any longer.  It is simply too easy to get this information now.  I believe we as physicians owe it to our patients to let them know they have a choice.  And the choice is to encourage them to explore their own questions on health, using their own body as a living laboratory, not the statistics of the next research study in the newspaper or on the nightly news.

Finally, I admit that I must accept a dose of my own medicine.  That is, while I may think a certain way about the need for choice when it comes to our own healthcare, I also acknowledge that there will be some people who make the choice to follow the conventional approach and only choose those treatments that have been “proven” in research studies.  I respect and honor that choice, whether or not it has been arrived at with the full knowledge of the alternatives, the consequences, and the existence of differing opinions.

-Part 2 of an excerpt from “Energy Medicine Principles for Parents: A Pediatrician’s Perspective on How Energy Medicine Can Help Your Child” published in May, 2009.

Additional comment: And so we arrive at the point where we must acknowledge that people are different; they have different needs, coping mechanisms, ways of responding to the world and other people, and yes, individual ways of responding to health challenges no matter what the statistics say. Instead of limiting our viewpoints to only those results of studies done on populations rather than individuals, I think we will all be better off taking in a bigger dose of reality based medicine.

Reality Based Medicine

I propose a new term called “reality based medicine” in order to more accurately describe what’s really happening in and around us as human beings.  If one of the smallest known components of our universe is the atom (I won’t get into subatomic particles) and we know that an atom can “appear” as either a particle or a wave, then we as human beings must also have this characteristic of dual appearance as particle and wave.  Is this not logical?

The energy medicine paradigm allows for this and in fact embraces it as part of its foundational principle, which is that we are energetic beings.  All of the “alternative medicine” systems incorporate this energy component in one form or another.  Isn’t it time that we as physicians caught up with the rest of the world?

My main criticism of “evidence based medicine” is the fact that the main supposition is that we are all the same.  Of course, everyone knows this is not true.  So how can smart people like doctors and researchers make this error?  I believe it comes from microfocusing on what can be proven statistically at the expense of what can be incorporated realistically by everyday people.  It’s one thing to say a certain medication is good for your heart, it’s quite another to say that same medication is going to force your body to do something it was never designed to do.

This is one of the greatest pitfalls of modern medicine.  I believe if people have more complete information about what’s going on in their bodies and the consequences of only following the evidence based medicine route, they will be able to make more sound decisions for their own individual situation. (I want to make it clear  that I think evidence based medicine is valuable and provides useful information. I just think it should not be the only factor used in medical decision making and healthcare choices by parents and patients.)

This can be further illustrated if we look at the example of how a child learns.  It is well known that kids learn differently.  Some are more visual, some auditory, some kinesthetic or feeling oriented, and this influences how they are best able to learn.

As a practicing physician in pediatrics, I have seen countless examples of all three.  Would it make sense to make all kids conform to learning in one way only?  Of course not.  Then why would we allow the same strategy to reign in the field of medicine?  It doesn’t make sense.  We should be striving to individualize treatments, not designing one  protocol and expect it to fit everyone.

-This is Part 1 of an excerpt from “Energy Medicine Principles for Parents: A Pediatrician’s Perspective on How Energy Medicine Can Help Your Child” published in May, 2009.  Part 2 will be posted soon.

Energy is the new “common currency”

Along with this new time that we are living in, it is apparent that we need a new language or new terminology to describe what is happening in as close to realistic terms as possible. Only in this way can we have a meaningful and productive discussion. I propose that we use the term “energy” as our common currency of information exchange.

The previous method of using physical components like chemicals, hormones, anatomical and physiological words to describe what is happening in our physical systems including your child’s body and mind; they have simply become obsolete. Even in the rigorous halls of academia, the descriptions of what is actually going on in our bodies has had to undergo a radical shift in perspective and consequently nomenclature.

I believe we are in a profound period of transition, and it will not be easy to reconcile or even understand the meaning of this change in real time. This is even more compounded by the fact that your child is changing on a daily basis, and the methods and strategies that may have worked yesterday will no longer work or even apply today. In my experience, simply changing to “energy” as our common denominator can make a huge difference in how we evaluate, describe, and come up with strategies to treat your child.

I see kids in my practice for varied reasons and at varying times in their development. I have learned over the years, that the energy medicine system provides a wonderful and comprehensive framework to work within and to better describe what’s happening with your child. Let’s look at an example.

A child presents with new onset allergies to grass and pollens at age 10. This is not that unusual, but the circumstances reveal that this child has not had any major changes in living situation, routine, school, relationships, etc., so the question that must be asked is, “Why is this happening to this child now?”.

I think this is a legitimate question, given the fact that he did not have allergies in the first ten years of life. This is where the energy medicine system comes in very handy. This child experienced a fearful event in the winter, just prior to developing these springtime allergies. What was that event? He needed to have surgery and stayed in the hospital for 5 days.

From an energy perspective, this has tremendous meaning. Do we think this child’s energy system is more likely to pay attention to an event like having surgery and being away from home for 5 days, or is it more likely to keep the immune system in balance so as not to over-react to environmental allergens like grass and pollens as he had done for the previous 10 years?

It turns out that in the Chinese medicine system, the same reservoir of energy required to deal with fear and fear-provoking events is responsible for the health and maintenance of your child’s immune system. In accordance with the principle of balance, a disturbance in the immune system or any other body subsystem can take the form of over-reaction or excess (like allergic responses) or under-performance and deficiency (like having a weakened constitution and predisposition to getting sick and catching colds frequently).

Again, I just want to emphasize the framework and the context which this perspective and viewpoint provides both to the practitioner trying to help the child and family, and to the parent who can appreciate and understand the activity of their child’s system in a new way.

Perhaps the most valuable result of this way of looking at any child’s situation, is that it shows how logical and conservation and preservation oriented the body and energy system really is, as opposed to a random series of events and misfortunes that a child has to endure.

Once we switch to using the child’s energy system and describing energy related functions, now we have moved into the territory of energy medicine and the term “energy” being used in the context of distribution and decision-making by the child’s own intelligent underlying system.

Do you see how the onset of allergies is much easier to comprehend and explain in this context? This allows us to not only address the new symptoms that have appeared for this child, but we can simultaneously focus on the underlying part of his energy system that could use some re-balancing or strengthening right now. It is much easier and better to tackle certain issues sooner rather than later. I think everyone can identify with this concept, once it is put into terms we can understand and agree on.

I believe it is extremely useful to use “energy” as a new medical term and as a systematic way to explain what otherwise would likely never come to the awareness of parents, practitioners, or children themselves. I have been amazed at how useful this way of thinking about symptoms, disorders and diseases is for me as a doctor who works with kids and their families. I encourage parents to learn more about this approach to evaluating what’s going on with their children.

As I have reflected on our conversation over the last few days, a new question has surfaced with regards to what I like to call “the middle ground” which is in between the conventional medical establishment and the alternative medicine wing of our society which includes a number of physicians in the mix besides myself. I believe we have become stuck on semantics and statistics and rules to the detriment of our understanding and seeking of common ground.

For example, it dawned on me after the interview that what I refer to as energy includes the conventional definition as well as the alternative. The only difference seems to be in what is focused on and named, and what receives the bulk of our investigation and quite frankly our belief. Energy in the conventional physical viewpoint of the body involves something called ATP, or adenosine triphosphate which is produced at the cellular level by the powerhouse of our cells, the mitochondria. Now, every physician has learned this and knows what ATP and mitochondria are. However, when it comes to our patients, parents and their kids, I have never been asked by them about this. Is it because mitochondria and ATP are not important? No. It is simply because nobody thinks or speaks using these terms except doctors and researchers.

When we use the term ‘energy’ in the alternative or holistic medicine viewpoint, we are referring to a concept that everyone can relate to, even though technically it is not measured. If someone is low on energy, we say they are tired out or exhausted. We don’t say their mitochondria are low on ATP production. This doesn’t mean we are right and everyone else is wrong, it just means that the description of energy is more understandable and useful for families looking for answers and explanations for their kids.

I believe that we can use both strategies to give parents the best information possible, depending on the situation at hand. In the realm of physical disorders and imbalances, there is no question that a hormone like insulin for diabetes is necessary and is an example of matching a physical deficiency with a physical or chemical/hormonal/substance replacement. In the category of energy imbalances, we must use energy inputs to match and correct the energy patterns that lead to problems and not assume that drugs or surgical interventions are the only valid choices. The BodyTalk System and the Chinese Medicine and acupuncture systems are examples of modalities whose intervention is largely energy based. As a physician, I have no problem accepting this as a concept because it makes sense, and I have seen the energy medicine approach work time after time with all age groups for many different energy associated conditions.

We owe it to ourselves, our families, our colleagues, and especially our succeeding generations, to find common ground and creative solutions, rather than prolonging the competitive stances that keep us in grid lock over who has the right answer for everyone and everything.

That’s more than enough of my ramblings, how about I give you a link to the audio file on my website where you can listen to the interview I did with Andrea Tannouri on Energy Medicine Principles for Parents.

This may be the first of many interviews where we explore topics that are important to you and your kids. Be sure to send me your feedback after listening to the interview.

In my practice, I use non-needle techniques to stimulate the acupuncture points in younger kids and I have found that this works just as well as using the needles on older kids and adults. I view the acupuncture point locations as being “hard-wired” into our body’s natural system of energy pathways already in place.

“More than 3 million adults and 150,000 children have used acupuncture for ailments like headaches, back and neck pain, anxiety and ADHD over the past year, according to the 2008 report published by the National Center for Health and Alternative Medicine at the National Institutes of Health.”

In addition, my experience is that the younger the child, the more easily they seem to be able to assimilate the information and input being given to them as part of the treatment process. It is very gratifying to see these stories appearing in the media and to see respected institutions doing research and promoting these complementary and alternative modalities as options for parents and their kids.

You can read the full article here:
Kids Receive Acupuncture for Ailments When Medicine’s Not Enough

Or you can watch the video clip from the Good Morning America show here.

As always, please leave your comments below. Thanks!

I recently put up a page on PFP called Symptoms and Your Child.
This generally outlines the Chinese Medicine approach I use when
evaluating kids and their symptoms. To me, it is a much more
holistic way of categorizing what’s going on with your child.

Over the years I have been amazed at the consistency and the
remarkable accuracy of this energy system when I use it to try and
decipher the meaning of symptoms affecting a particular child.

Go ahead and visit the page and let me know what you think. I’ll be
adding more details in the coming weeks and months in this section
of the website.