Imaging and Mirroring: How the Balance Method Maps the Body
What Imaging and Mirroring Mean
Imaging and mirroring rest on one idea. A part of the body can be read as a picture of another part. Once you know which part pictures which, you can treat an area by working on its picture somewhere else, away from the site of the complaint.
The idea is old and widely shared. Ear and scalp microsystems use it, and so does Tung's Acupuncture. Dr Richard Tan made it the final step of every treatment in Dr Tan's Balance Method. Dr Eileen Han's doctoral research, completed in 2017, was on the holographic principles that underpin the method.
Our teaching material defines the two terms this way.
- Image projection relates a limb to the trunk, or a limb to the head.
- Mirror projection relates one limb to another, or a limb to the torso.
Both serve the same purpose, which is to let you needle distally, whatever the complaint.
Many Acupuncturists already use imaging without calling it that. Several familiar textbook points on the forearm and lower leg have classical indications that sit in the part of the trunk their area images, from the chest down to the pelvis.
Mirroring: Limb to Limb
An arm can mirror the other arm, a leg the other leg, and an arm can mirror a leg. Dr Han states the principle in two short sentences. "Knee is mirror to elbow. Elbow is mirror to knee." In the direct orientation, the joints line up in order like this, so the wrist corresponds to the ankle and the hand to the foot. In the reversed orientation the picture is turned end to end.
Dr Han teaches a simple test for a good mirror: match like with like. The elbow and the knee are both joints built on two bones, so they are anatomically very similar. Muscle lying over bone matches muscle lying over bone. The round bone at the shoulder matches the round bone of the heel. The anatomy guides the match, down to the tissue layer of the complaint. "Skin, muscle, tendon, bone, joints," she reminds her classes, so a problem in the bone calls for an image that reaches bone.
Imaging the Trunk and Head Onto the Limbs
The same principle reaches further. A limb can be read as a picture of the trunk, or of the head and neck. In Dr Han's teaching the whole body can also be imaged onto the sole of the foot, and the fingers can be used for the head. The direction an image runs in depends on the format being used.
The Balance Method also maps the body onto the scalp. It is the same method, applied through a different area.
Our Module 1 page calls this part of the course "holographic imaging, mirroring and imaging formats". The plural matters. There is more than one way to lay an image on a limb, and part of the skill is knowing which one fits the complaint and the patient.
How Imaging Works With the Five Systems
The five systems and imaging answer two different questions, and a Balance Method treatment needs both.
The system chooses the channel. You identify the sick meridian at the area of complaint, then use one of the classical relationships to pick a balancing channel elsewhere. Our guide to the five systems explains those relationships.
The image chooses the spot. Once you know the balancing channel, imaging and mirroring tell you where along it to needle. In one of Dr Han's cases, the complaint was at the knee. The system gave a channel on the arm, and the mirror placed the treatment around the elbow on that channel. The step depends on reasoning from the image, with no list of indications to memorise.
It also gives you options. If a patient would rather not take off their shoes and socks, you can needle somewhere else that images the same area. That flexibility is what imaging and mirroring are about.
Palpation and Checking the Area
An image tells you where to look. Palpation finds the spot on this patient. Within the imaged area on the chosen channel, the Acupuncturist feels for the most reactive point, guided by tenderness, a change in texture, or the patient's response. Dr Han puts the rule plainly in class. "It doesn't hurt, then you don't put needle. Tender, tender, tender, then you put needles in."
After needling, the Acupuncturist asks the patient to move or press the area of complaint and describe what they notice. Dr Tan's maxim for this was 立竿見影, "stand a pole, see the shadow". The response to a treatment should be visible, so you can test and adjust. Dr Han is clear about its limit. Seeing a response does not mean the problem is gone, and a course of treatment still takes time.
What the patient reports guides the next decision: keep the needles, adjust the location, try a different image, or move to another system.
Where Imaging and Mirroring Are Taught
Imaging and mirroring open Module 1, Dr Tan's Core Essentials, on its first day. The next Module 1 runs in Brisbane on 16–18 April 2027, with 12 or more live patient demonstrations and 19.5 CPD points. No prior Balance Method training is needed.
Dr Han teaches it with her reasoning explained out loud. She spent 20 years at Dr Tan's side, 15 of them helping run his clinic, and treats 50–70 patients a day using the Balance Method only.
Two of our webinar pages cover her approach to neck and shoulder conditions and chronic pain. If you already use Tung's Acupuncture, how point selection differs between the Balance Method, Tung and TCM shows where the approaches meet.