This book is the latest publication of the international research group "Theory, Methodology, and Structure of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)," which has been working since 2008. It outlines a methodology that is adequate for research on Classical Chinese Medicine, followed by a detailed and careful analysis of Evidence-Based Acupuncture and Mechanistic Studies of Acupuncture. The authors also analyze and discuss classical texts, hermeneutical treatments, historical studies, clinical trials, women's diseases, lifestyle-related diseases, placebo effects, and Baomai and Baoluo. Leading experts from America, Austria, Brazil, China, Germany, and South Korea demonstrate that Chinese medicine is a scientific system that is independent from Western medicine.

From the beginning, Constructive Realism has been a culturally orientated philosophy of science by the introduction of the concept of lifeworld. This book brings together contributions from the field of philosophy, Chinese medicine and the science of psychotherapy. The authors discuss the relation of Constructive Realism and culture or rather the concept of science under the aspect of cultural dependency. Since the beginning of the new century the manifold research on Chinese Medicine offered concrete examples for a cultural dependency of science. Thereby, the book shows the rare or even unique situation that philosophy became concrete.