Calming the Wind: A Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioner's Approach to Wartime Acute Stress Disorder Symptoms

In this narrative essay, a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) practitioner describes the challenge of treating three survivors of a terror attack, all of whom were presenting various symptoms of acute stress disorder (ASD). Working in new and exceptionally demanding circumstances - with thousands of people injured in an extensive and direct terror attack, with relatives taken hostages and entire communities evacuated from their homes - the practitioner looked for an effective treatment strategy to alleviate symptoms of stress response. He found it in the interface between TCM and the function of the autonomic nervous system.