**1. Introduction**

Mental disorders have been one of the leading contributors to the global disease burden in the twenty-first century. It has been accounted for one-third of the global disability [1]. Owing to the absence of cost-effective interventions and preventive measures, the prevalence of mental disorders shows no sign of declination. Surveys have shown that the increase in rates of treatments and therefore an even larger demand for mental health services has become an evitable problem for the society [2]. A proportion of patients with mental health problems shift from conventional health service to complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) [3]. Various studies showed the 12-month prevalence of CAM ranging from 10 to 75%, depending on populations and research methods [4]. Among all CAM applicable to patients, acupuncture, as one of the components in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), has been commonly used in East Asian countries including China and Taiwan [5, 6]. In contrast to traditional body acupuncture, treatments for mental illness are more focused on acupuncture on the scalp. The sole use of acupoints or lines on the scalp in acupuncture deviates from the concept of traditional acupuncture and named

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*Acupuncture - Resolving Old Controversies and Pointing New Pathways*

[1] Fu ZH. The Foundation of Fu's Subcutaneous Needling. Beijing: People's

Medical Publishing House; 2016

[3] Fu ZH. The Manual of Fu's Subcutaneous Needling for Painful Problems. Beijing: People's Medical

[4] FU Z-h, CHEN X-y, LU L-j, LIN J, XU J-g. Immediate effect of Fu's subcutaneous needling for low back pain. Chinese Medical Journal.

[5] Fu Z, Hsieh Y-L, Hong C-Z, Kao M-J, Lin J-G, Chou L-W. Remote subcutaneous needling to suppress the irritability of Myofascial trigger spots: An experimental study in rabbits. Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine. 2012;**2012**:353916

Publishing House; 2011

2006;**119**(11):953-956

2007;**13**(1):47-52

**References**

[2] Fu ZH, Wang JH, Sun JH, Chen XY, Xu JG. Fu's subcutaneous needling: Possible clinical evidence of the subcutaneous connective tissue in acupuncture. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine.

scalp acupuncture. The development of scalp acupuncture has been rapid in the recent decades, and there is emerging evidence in supporting its use in patients with mental illnesses.
