Hm, I’m a bit unhappy with the framing of symptoms vs. root causes, and am skeptical about whether it captures a real thing (when it comes to mental health and drugs vs. therapy). I’m worried that making the difference between the two contributes to the problems alexrjl pointed out.
Note, I have no clinical expertise and am just spitballing: e.g. I understand the following trajectory as archetypical for what others might call “aha! First a patch and then root causes”:
[Low energy --> takes antidepressants --> then has enough energy to do therapy & changes thought patterns etc. --> becomes long-term better afterwards doesn’t need antidepressants anymore”]
But even if somebody had a trajectory like this, I’m not convinced that the thought patterns should count as root cause and not e.g. physiological imbalances that gave these kind of thought patterns a rich feeding ground in the first place (, which were addressed by antidepressants and perhaps to be addressed first before long-term improvement is possible). This makes me think that even if there is some matter of fact, it’s not particularly meaningful.
(This seems even more true to me for things like ADHD—not even sure what root causes would be here -, but which weren’t central to OP)
I think you might plausibly have a different and coherent conception of the root causes vs. symptoms thing, but I’m worried of using that distinction anyway because root causes is pretty normatively connotated, and people have all kinds of associations to it. (Would still be curious to hear your conceptualisation if you have one)
I care much less/have no particular thoughts on this distinction in non-mental-health cases, which were the focus of OP.
+1 to appreciating the OP, and I’ll probably try out some of the things suggested!
Hm, I’m a bit unhappy with the framing of symptoms vs. root causes, and am skeptical about whether it captures a real thing (when it comes to mental health and drugs vs. therapy). I’m worried that making the difference between the two contributes to the problems alexrjl pointed out.
Note, I have no clinical expertise and am just spitballing: e.g. I understand the following trajectory as archetypical for what others might call “aha! First a patch and then root causes”:
[Low energy --> takes antidepressants --> then has enough energy to do therapy & changes thought patterns etc. --> becomes long-term better afterwards doesn’t need antidepressants anymore”]
But even if somebody had a trajectory like this, I’m not convinced that the thought patterns should count as root cause and not e.g. physiological imbalances that gave these kind of thought patterns a rich feeding ground in the first place (, which were addressed by antidepressants and perhaps to be addressed first before long-term improvement is possible). This makes me think that even if there is some matter of fact, it’s not particularly meaningful.
(This seems even more true to me for things like ADHD—not even sure what root causes would be here -, but which weren’t central to OP)
I think you might plausibly have a different and coherent conception of the root causes vs. symptoms thing, but I’m worried of using that distinction anyway because root causes is pretty normatively connotated, and people have all kinds of associations to it. (Would still be curious to hear your conceptualisation if you have one)
I care much less/have no particular thoughts on this distinction in non-mental-health cases, which were the focus of OP.
+1 to appreciating the OP, and I’ll probably try out some of the things suggested!