Qigong: globalisation versus metabolisation

Qigong 氣功, literally translated as “breath work”, entered the field of medical research in France in 2010 under the name MAC, Alternative Complementary Medicine, a term adopted by the World Health Organization (WHO). This article focuses on the current institutionalization movement of this ancestral Chinese body technique in our care system through the necessary detour of research. We are witnessing a convergence of forces, those derived from international guidelines for integrative medicine, from the interest of our contemporaries in a holistic vision and from researchers in understanding its mechanisms of action to validate its scientific contribution, particularly in the field of addictions. A compromise seems possible between verticality exercised by international bodies, and horizontality, that is, the demand of our contemporaries, particularly in the treatment of chronic pain. The choice of a mixed biomedical and psychological methodology oriented towards psychoanalysis makes it possible to investigate the contributions of qigong in its self-supporting function, to give patients a voice, to give way to subjective experience and not to reduce the actors to a formal understanding of psychopathology. The interest of the PHRC (hospital clinical research program) is very important since it allows for the collection of clinical elements and the evaluation of the effectiveness of a technique for which there is little data.