Acupuncture in the Treatment of Depression

This pioneering book unites both Western and Traditional Chinese Medicine to provide a comprehensive overview of depression from both clinical perspectives, and to present a step-by-step methodology for the evaluation and acupuncture treatment of this condition, using an experimentally tested protocol. In addition, it addresses fundamental issues in acupuncture research and offers guidelines for the design of acupuncture treatment studies. Features: Gives guidelines on how to develop appropriate treatment principles, and how to select and combine the correct acupuncture points; Offers clinical guidelines for treating people with depression, including dealing with acute symptoms, assessing the risk of suicide, and when to make a prompt referral; Presents case histories, both successfully and unsuccessfully treated; Reviews definitions of depression in Western psychiatry and psychology, including epidemiology, etiology, differential diagnosis and conventional treatments; Describes the causes and progression of depressive symptoms from a Chinese perspective; Outlines each specific pattern of imbalance encountered in depression, how to differentiate signs and symptoms according to Traditional Chinese Medicine; Gives a comprehensive overview of research issues in acupuncture, outlining advantages and disadvantages of different treatment study design; The design and result of the authors' pilot study, funded by the NIH, are given to illustrate a model for acupuncture treatment research.