Table of Contents
Integrative Chinese Medicine (ICM) by Jeremy Ross is ‘integrative’ in several respects: It integrates experience, knowledge and procedures
- from Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and
- from Traditional European Medicine (TEM) as well as
- from modern Medicine and the Natural Sciences as well as
- from the modern Health Sciences.
ICM concentrates on those procedures that we as practitioners really need to know and be able to do in order to improve the quality of life of the people who entrust themselves to us.
What Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) can do for us
The special and actually very modern aspect of TCM is its Chinese Syndrome Diagnostics: TCM procedures are not only selected and applied on the basis of symptoms. By recognising complex combinations of symptoms and findings (= syndromes, patterns), TCM can assess the patient’s systemic condition much more precisely and individually and treat it more specifically. Using statistical methods (factor analyses), we can now also prove that people’s symptoms and findings never occur in random combinations, but always in these specific patterns, which we call syndromes in TCM.
In Integrative Chinese Medicine, Jeremy Ross has developed a system of so-called Differential Diagnostic Questions that is as sophisticated as it is simple and practicable. This methodology allows us practitioners to make a Chinese Diagnosis quickly and accurately. We can also master complex cases, as Jeremy Ross also describes in Integrative Chinese Medicine how syndromes – under certain circumstances – develop from other syndromes and evolve into other syndromes. By precisely understanding these syndrome relationships, we at Integrative Chinese Medicine can select and apply exactly the right TCM procedures for each patient.
Integrative Chinese Medicine is also based on what is known as Yang Sheng – Chinese Health Promotion and Prevention: This involves patients taking responsibility for their own health-promoting and disease-preventing lifestyle and teaches them appropriate self-help techniques. These are primarily techniques of self-massage, Qigong and Chinese Nutrition.
What Traditional European Medicine (TEM) can do for us
The European naturopathic tradition also has a lot to offer that we can use to improve our patients’ quality of life. This is particularly true of Western Phytotherapy. As a biologist and botanist, Jeremy Ross at Integrative Chinese Medicine has succeeded in selecting and utilizing the effectiveness of Western herbs on the basis of Chinese Syndrome Diagnosis. This enables us at Integrative Chinese Medicine to adapt Western Herbal Medicine precisely to the individual patient’s condition and treat even complex cases effectively.
Just as in TCM, we also know self-help techniques in TEM, which we teach our patients. This enables them to take responsibility for helping themselves to become or remain healthy.
What modern Medicine and the Natural Sciences can do for us
In his publications, Jeremy Ross specialises in compiling effective herbal combinations that always refer to the current state of basic pharmaceutical research. It is remarkable how this research has developed in recent years in terms of the quantity and quality of studies, and this dynamic seems set to continue unabated in the coming years. It is difficult for us practitioners to keep pace with this rapid development. Jeremy Ross and other ICM Experts try to keep up to date and pass on their knowledge to the community of ICM practitioners.
What modern Health Sciences can do for us
Both TCM and TEM have always emphasised and demanded that patients take personal responsibility. Under the current conditions in our healthcare system, this is more important than ever: 80% of deaths are caused by so-called diseases of civilisation: Cardiovascular diseases, chronic lung diseases, type II diabetes, chronic myofascial pain, immune-deficiency diseases through to tumour diseases and stress-related diseases, among others. These diseases also account for 80% of diagnoses in German general practices. And these diseases of civilisation are almost exclusively caused by a stressful lifestyle of the patients affected.
Conversely, this means that the focus should not be on treating such chronic diseases, but on changing the patient’s lifestyle. To this end, we at ICM advise and empower our patients to adopt a health-promoting and preventive lifestyle. We teach them self-help techniques from TCM and TEM and accompany them over a longer period of time in the sense of modern, health science-based health coaching. According to our experience at Integrative Chinese Medicine, there are not only sick people who engage in this type of health education, but increasingly also healthy people who want to stay healthy.
How we can learn and use Integrative Chinese Medicine (ICM)
Thanks to its logical and systematic approach, Integrative Chinese Medicine is quick and safe to learn and practical to implement in daily practice. In co-operation with Jeremy Ross and other ICM Experts, we have developed numerous media for this purpose. These are prepared in a multimedia format: There are books in English and German, as well as a bilingual website, a Facebook page, and YouTube channel, free videos, and online courses, webinars and seminars, as well as a basic learning programme.
ICM Master App – A Software to learn and use Integrative Chinese Medicine
The basic tool for learning Integrative Chinese Medicine quickly and safely is the ‘ICM Master App’ software.
The database of this app is based on Jeremy Ross’ wealth of knowledge and experience and contains 120 medicinal herbs and 300 preset herbal combinations. The software also includes an online course with lessons on phytotherapy and numerous case studies on how to use the app.
The app makes it possible to select herbs and compile effective herbal formulas based on symptoms and also on Chinese syndromes.
The app significantly simplifies and speeds up daily work with patients. It presents Jeremy’s knowledge and approach in such a way that symptoms and syndromes can be quickly and reliably differentiated and the appropriate therapy can be determined quickly and reliably.
Learn more about the ICM Master App: www.icm-master.app