Therapy: Treating Symptoms vs Root Cause

I remember being so excited when I enrolled into my first psychology class. I thought, "Finally! I will learn why we are the way we are... what makes us tick... why are some people funny and others so crazy." But that's not the way it went. I quickly began to realize that psychology was a very complex, next-to-impossible-to-explain process.

As human beings we are so complex and we have our own histories and backgrounds. When I started to work with people, I felt so frustrated by the grim reality that there are no formulas to treating people — and we in the field of psychology know so little about the brain, even after all these advances in technology.

I bought an arsenal of treatment planning books. Everything from drug and alcohol treatment, to anxiety, depression, phobias — everything. And as I pitched these treatment plans and goals, I realized that we weren't treating the causes. We were focusing instead on the symptoms.

Why Symptoms Aren't Enough

For some, the problems they present — like social anxiety, poor self-esteem, self-worth, and pessimism — didn't start 6 months ago. They didn't start years ago. These are problems that started in childhood and have persisted for years and years. And now you're in your 40's... feeling hopeless about change. That is, until you see me and I begin to explain that the reason why your issues never resolved was because your focus was on the symptoms and never on the root cause.

When you go see a therapist, don't expect to treat the root of the problem. Why? Because we aren't trained to locate the root of the problem. Why? Because the root of our problems are found in the unconscious mind.

The Shift to Root Cause Therapy

After years of hearing people ask, "Why am I like this or why do I do good and then go back to old ways?" — I rebelled! I rebelled against a system that had taught us to disregard the unconscious mind and focus on the here and now. It was the greatest shift in my clinical career. I went back to the first interventions I had ever learned: Hypnosis.

When you work at the unconscious level, the door opens to understanding why we are the way we are. We get to see the root of our problems, we discover the start, the beginning. Like opening that secret box we'd always wondered about. For the first time ever, we get to explore our beliefs, our attitudes, and everything that makes us tick!

Take a common belief like, "I'm not good enough." Traditional therapy would focus on being rational and focusing on when that statement isn't true. Root cause therapy focuses on the experience that led to that belief, which now lives in the unconscious mind.

Beliefs aren't changed at the conscious level — where therapy typically happens. A change in belief only occurs at the unconscious level, and the only way to access the unconscious is through strategies like Journey Work and Hypnosis. If you treat the root of the problem, then that problem will cease to exist — and so will the symptoms.