Isolated from the theories of TCM, as it is practised by some practitioners here in North America, acupuncture becomes mostly a technique of needle insertion. We feel the art and science of acupuncture has been somewhat distorted by practitioners who have only short training in skin puncture techniques. There are some major differences to distinguish traditional acupuncture from various new styles of acupuncture.
Traditional acupuncture is practised within the framework of traditional Chinese medicine.
A practitioner must be able to conduct a traditional interview with a client, collect all the necessary clinical information and reach a TCM diagnosis. Then, the practitioner will be able to form a treatment strategy, and select a combination of acupuncture points. TCM is based on an energetic model rather than the anatomical or biochemical model. The key to TCM diagnosis is to detect the pattern of imbalance and disharmony of the different systems within the human body. Since the definitions of health and diseases of TCM and of biomedicine are different, traditional acupuncture treatment does not rely on biomedical diagnosis.