Women’s Health acupuncture - Johnny Childs

How Five-Element Acupuncture Helps Us Process, Heal & Move Forward

When Women’s Health UK invited one of their senior editors, Róisín Dervish-O’Kane, to experience a course of Five-Element acupuncture with me, she arrived — like so many of my patients — with a busy mind, a full life, and a sense that something internal simply wasn’t shifting. The feature captures her journey beautifully, spotlighting how treatment can help people move through emotional stagnation and back into a sense of clarity and flow. Womans Health 25

Below, I expand on some of the themes the article explores — what Five-Element acupuncture really is, why it feels so different to conventional therapy, and how patients often describe the experience.

Five-Element Acupuncture: A System Focused on Change

As highlighted in the feature, Five-Element acupuncture is ultimately a system of transformation. Rather than treating only symptoms, we work with what Chinese medicine describes as the causative factor — the underlying imbalance influencing how you think, feel and respond to life’s demands.

In the piece, Róisín mentions the theory’s organising structure: the five elements of Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water, each linked to physical organs and emotional qualities. These are not abstract concepts; they are clinical tools that help us understand where someone’s energy is stuck and where treatment can bring the biggest shift. Woman's Health

Treatment Is Deep, Personal, and Often Surprisingly Emotional

One of the things the article captures well is how different Five-Element treatment feels from the assumption of “needles in, lie still, needles out.” It describes warming the meridian system with moxa, diagnosing the pulse dynamically, and treating one point at a time so the body can respond immediately. Womans Health

Patients often tell me that the experience feels clarifying — as though something inside them comes into focus. Róisín describes moments of insight, unexpected emotion, and the sense that long-held tension finally has room to release. That emotional shift is not incidental; it’s central to the work.

Unlike traditional talk therapy, which operates primarily through the mind, Five-Element acupuncture works through the body to access experience stored far below conscious thought. When the system finally has enough energy, it knows how to reorganise itself.

The Body Responds When It Feels Safe

In the piece, there’s a moment where Róisín mentions how her body responds as soon as she feels her pulse change. These moments — subtle but profound — are where treatment becomes transformative. They’re the points where someone’s system recognises safety, reconnects, and begins to move again. Woman's Health

That’s what makes Five-Element acupuncture such a powerful tool for patients navigating emotional overwhelm, fertility treatment, IVF, hormonal shifts, chronic stress, or simply a prolonged sense of “stuckness.”

Why This Matters for Fertility & IVF Support

Although the article focuses on emotional health, many of the same principles apply when supporting fertility patients — particularly those undergoing IVF at clinics like The Evewell, where I collaborate closely.

A system under chronic stress is a system that cannot prioritise reproduction. When the body can regulate again — when it feels grounded, nourished, and in flow — we often see improvements in cycles, sleep, digestion, mood, and the ability to cope with the emotional demands of treatment.

Five-Element acupuncture isn’t simply about “relaxing” the patient; it’s about energetically re-balancing the whole system so it can do what it’s inherently designed to do.

Treatment That Sees You as a Whole Person

One of my favourite lines in the Women’s Health feature is the editor’s observation that during sessions, she feels “seen for everything she is.” Womans Health 25

That is precisely what this system is built for.

Five-Element acupuncture meets you where you are — not as a collection of symptoms, but as a complete human being doing your best in a very demanding world. It’s a treatment that respects your story, your resilience, and your potential to move forward.

Read the full articel below: