Western medicine is concerned with isolable disease categories or agents, which it focuses on,isolates, and tries to change,control or destroy. Western medicine starts with a symptom then reaches for an underlying mechanism-a precise cause for a specific disease. This disease may affect various other parts of the body but it is relatively self-contained. Precise diagnosis frames an exact, quantifiable description of a narrow area.

In contrast, the Chinese physician directs attention to the complete physiological and psychological individual. All revel ant information is gathered and woven together into a "pattern of disharmony." This pattern then describes a situation of 'imbalances." This diagnostic technique does not turn up a specific disease entity but renders a poetic yet workable description of a whole person. No single part can be understood without it relation to the whole.