Conditions affecting the physical, mental or emotional health of the patient are assumed to be treatable by stimulation of the surface of the ear exclusively.

[5][6] Nogier developed a phrenological method of projection of a fetal Homunculus on the ear and published what he called the "Vascular Autonomic Signal" which measured a change in the amplitude of the pulse.

[12] Retired U.S. Air Force flight surgeon Harriet Hall characterized the Department of Defense's use of acupuncture and auriculotherapy as an embarrassing "infiltration of quackery into military medicine", a waste of tax dollars, and a potential harm to patients.

[15] "Auricular acupuncture therapy is an important part of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), which is ascribed to a kind of micro-needle system.

But it was not until the French neurologist Paul Nogier systematically referenced and chartered the points of the ear in the late 1950s, was this form of treatment extensively researched, developed and practiced as its own modality in East Asia and in the West.

[17] These referred sensations reinforce the pain relief produced by the placebo effect and may be part of the reason why the belief in auriculotherapy persists.