From “Woo Woo” to Wu: What We Lose When We Dismiss Ancient Wisdom
A colleague of mine was describing a helpful healing practices she was doing as “a little woo woo,” casting her eyes down as if awaiting a verbal blow of judgment from me. Instead she seemed surprised and a little cautious when I offered curiosity instead “Oh, that sounds really cool, could you tell me more about that?”. I don’t need to specify what practice she was talking about, because maybe it was meditation, somatic therapy, energy work, intuition, or anything that didn’t fit neatly into a Western, evidence-based box. We’ve all heard someone use the phrase “woo woo” in a way that invokes judgment and shame around a potentially helpful practice.
The phrase is often used casually, even jokingly, but it’s important to understand that the message behind it is serious: this practice (or you) are not rational, or legitimate.
Instead of asking whether something is “woo woo,” it may be more useful to ask a different question: What traditions and ways of knowing are being dismissed when we use that label?
One place to begin that conversation is with the Chinese concept of wu (巫).
What Is Wu? A Brief Cultural Context
In ancient Chinese culture, wu refers to ritual specialists or shamans who served as mediators between the human, natural, and spiritual worlds. Long before modern psychology or Western medicine, wu practitioners played central roles in healing, emotional regulation, ritual, and meaning-making within their communities (Eliade, 1964; Keightley, 1998).
Just in case a part of you is assuming or judging, it feels important to state that these practices were not considered “fringe” or marginal. They were embedded in early Chinese understandings of health, balance, and the relationship between body, environment, and emotion. Over time, elements of wu traditions influenced Daoist philosophy, embodied healing practices, and what later became aspects of Traditional Chinese Medicine (Kohn, 2008).
What we now call “holistic” or “alternative” was once a normal part of how Chinese people and other ancient cultures understood wellbeing.
“Woo Woo” vs. Wu
To be clear, the English slang term “woo woo” does not have a known linguistic history or etymology from the Chinese word wu. Most dictionaries trace woo woo to 20th-century English slang used to dismiss ideas perceived as mystical or irrational (Merriam-Webster, n.d.). As the words do seem related, I do wonder myself though if there actually is a connection, even without the evidence.
What we do know is related though is that many practices rooted in ancient Chinese, Indigenous, and other ancestral traditions have been categorized as “woo woo” by Western cultures. This occurrence really speaks to the discomfort with ways of knowing that don’t prioritize logic, productivity, or quantifiable outcomes above lived, embodied experience.
“Woo Woo” Invokes Shame
Calling something “woo woo” usually implies:
It’s unscientific
It’s unserious
It’s irrational or emotionally indulgent
It doesn’t belong in “real” conversations about health or mental health
For many people, this creates shame around practices that might genuinely support their well-being. This becomes especially problematic when the practices being dismissed come from cultural traditions that have historically been marginalized, co-opted or misunderstood by Western institutions.
What Commonly Gets Called “Woo Woo”
You’ll often hear the label applied to:
Meditation or mindfulness
Breathwork or energy work
Somatic therapy
Acupuncture or Traditional Chinese Medicine
Intuition or body-based knowing
Ritual, symbolism, or ancestral practices
Astrology or intuitive predictions
And yet, many of these approaches are also increasingly supported by psychological and physiological research, particularly for stress reduction, trauma recovery, and emotional regulation (Khoury et al., 2015; Cohen et al., 2017).
We should move past spending all our energy and effort on deciding whether these practices are “real” and move towards understanding that these things help people.
Therapy Can Honor Ancient Wisdom Without Losing Integrity
Modern therapy doesn’t have to choose between science and ancient wisdom.
A trauma-informed, culturally responsive therapeutic approach can:
Value empirical research
Critically think about the contexts of research studies
Honor embodied and ancestral ways of knowing
Support ritual, symbolism, and meaning-making
Validate experiences that don’t fit neatly into diagnostic language
From this perspective, somatic and body-based therapies are contemporary expressions of very old understandings: that the body carries memory, that healing is relational, and that emotional health is inseparable from physical and spiritual experience. This is deeply aligned with the spirit of wu, even if the language has changed.
Embracing Ancient Wisdom Increases Mental Health Access
When mental health actively or passively ignores ancient wisdom and ancestral knowledge, it alienates people whose cultures, identities, or personal experiences emphasize embodiment, intuition, spirituality, or communal care.
Honoring ancestral wisdom in therapy:
Makes mental health care more accessible and comfortable
Reduces shame around non-Western healing practices
Allows people to integrate the different parts of their identities rather than compartmentalizing them
Supports deeper nervous-system regulation and meaning making
Helps therapy feel less scary, clinical, and inhuman
Reflection: Reconnect With Your Own Ancestral Wisdom
Want to honor your own ancestral wisdom from your lineage and cultural background?
Across cultures, ancestral wisdom often includes:
Listening to the body
Respecting rest and seasonal rhythms
Storytelling and ritual
Communal care
Connection to land, food, and lineage
You might reflect on:
What helped people in my family or culture cope with hardship?
Were there rituals or routines around rest, grief, or healing?
What ways of listening to my body feel familiar or comforting?
What practices existed before constant productivity became the norm?
Some examples:
Prayer or meditation
Cooking traditional foods (and sharing it)
Spending time in nature
Movement
Music or singing
Honoring elders or listening to histories
My favorite kinds of ancestral wisdom take place in the ordinary everyday moments of real life. They are intentional embodied acts of care and love for ourselves and our communities.
Let’s Connect More in Therapy
If you’re curious about integrating body-based, somatic, or ancestral approaches into your mental health care, therapy can offer a grounded space to explore what resonates with you and what supports your nervous system in this season of life.
References
Cohen, H., et al. (2017). The impact of breath-based practices on stress and emotional regulation. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 78(3), 83–95.
Eliade, M. (1964). Shamanism: Archaic techniques of ecstasy. Princeton University Press.
Keightley, D. N. (1998). The religious commitment: Shang theology and the genesis of Chinese political culture. History of Religions, 17(3–4), 211–225.
Khoury, B., Lecomte, T., Fortin, G., et al. (2015). Mindfulness-based therapy: A comprehensive meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, 33, 763–771.
Kohn, L. (2008). Chinese healing exercises: The tradition of Daoyin. University of Hawai‘i Press.
Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Woo-woo. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/woo-woo