O'Shaugnessy is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine and owns a clinic in Orlando, Florida. She also runs a website which sells herbal medicinal soups.
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I received this as an ebook for review (quite a long time ago, I am sorry to say - I have a shameful backlog after being on the longest hiatus I ever hope to take from blogging), and I am glad that I was finally able to get around to reading it. Prior to reading this, I didn't really know anything about traditional Chinese medicine apart from some VERY basic concepts. I am, however, interested in holistic/herbal remedies for things. Not being able to afford health insurance tends to make you more interested in finding ways to maintain your health and do what you can without racking up bills with a doctor.
So the title of this book specifies that the content will offer a guide to obtaining healthier skin through use of Chinese medicine, and that's exactly what O'Shaugnessy provides. What surprised me, though, is that the nature of traditional Chinese medicine is such that the remedies actually target many other parts of the body as well; this is all because of the flow of energies that connects everything together, and in treating one area, you are also treating the directly related areas. Chinese Medicine for Healthy Skin gives an excellent sort of crash course to all of this in the beginning chapters, discussing the history of Chinese medicine, as well as the concepts of qi (chee), yin and yang, and meridians.
Basically, Chinese medicine is about getting the energies of your body into harmony and keeping them that way - not treating one thing by substituting pain or discomfort for (potentially equally annoying) side effects.
