An individual is conceived whole, broken apart by the world, and reconstituted through acupuncture. The practice of acupuncture as a palpation-based medicine brings the acupuncture practitioner into direct physical contact with an individual’s imbalances, be they any combination of mental, physical, emotional, or spiritual aspects of a person. Every phenomenon that occurs in the body is observable through palpation, and palpation provides a direct feedback mechanism to evaluate the effectiveness of an acupuncture treatment.