Your Symptoms Are Speaking—Are You Listening?
Sometimes, therapy gets framed as a method for eliminating symptoms. Anxiety? Let’s reduce it. Depression? Let’s lift it. Distressing thoughts? Let’s challenge and replace them. The underlying assumption is that symptoms are problems—malfunctions of the mind that need to be corrected, managed, or suppressed.
But what if that assumption is wrong?
Functional Psychotherapy operates on a different premise: Symptoms are not arbitrary noise—They are meaningful, they exist for a reason, and they are telling you something essential about your life.
The Mistake of Treating Symptoms Like Pests
Consider how we approach physical health. If someone develops chronic migraines, the symptom-focused model might prescribe medication to suppress the pain. But what if those migraines are caused by untreated hypertension or an undiagnosed tumor? Treating the symptom without understanding its cause does nothing to resolve the underlying problem—it merely masks it.
The same logic applies to emotional distress. If a person feels persistent anxiety before going to work, the anxiety isn’t the problem; it’s the signal. It may be pointing to a toxic work environment, an internal conflict about career choices, or unresolved trauma that gets activated in professional settings. The anxiety isn't wrong—it's informative.
Suppressing symptoms without understanding them is like disabling a fire alarm because the sound is annoying. The noise stops, but the fire keeps burning.
From Suppression to Investigation
Functional Psychotherapy sees symptoms as clues rather than inconveniences. Instead of asking, “How do I get rid of this feeling?” the more useful question is:
"What is this feeling trying to tell me?"
When a client presents with overwhelming guilt, the therapeutic task is not simply to dull that guilt but to determine its function. Is it the appropriate moral weight of having harmed someone? Or is it a misplaced sense of responsibility, conditioned by years of self-sacrifice and parentification? The meaning of the symptom dictates the approach to treatment.
In therapy, then, this shift from symptom suppression to symptom investigation is crucial. When we approach distress with curiosity rather than resistance, we unlock its function. We stop treating emotions like errors and start using them as guides.
Transformation vs. Counteraction
The distinction between transformational and counteractive change is fundamental here. Counteractive therapy tries to neutralize symptoms—teaching relaxation techniques to suppress panic, using thought-stopping strategies to block distressing memories, or applying cognitive restructuring to dismiss negative thoughts. While these methods may have their place, they don’t necessarily resolve the underlying cause.
Transformational change, on the other hand, dissolves symptoms at their root. It does this by addressing the emotional truth behind them. A client experiencing deep-seated self-doubt, for instance, doesn’t need to simply “challenge” negative thoughts. They need to uncover why those beliefs formed in the first place, what purpose they served, and whether they still serve a function now. When this deeper work is done, the symptom often fades on its own—because it is no longer necessary.
What Does This Mean for You?
If you find yourself caught in an endless loop of symptom management—cycling through coping strategies, medications, and temporary relief—it may be time to change your approach. Instead of fighting your symptoms, try listening to them. They are telling you something about your life, your needs, your history.
The goal of therapy is not to silence those messages but to decode them. Because once you understand what your symptoms are telling you, you can stop wrestling with them and start making changes that matter.
Listen to Your Emotions – Instead of dismissing difficult emotions, ask yourself: What might this feeling be trying to tell me?
Consider the Context – When a symptom arises, look at what’s happening around you. Are you in an environment that aligns with your needs and values?
Experiment with Responses – Try responding to your symptoms differently: Instead of avoidance, engage with them curiously. What happens?
By treating symptoms as meaningful clues rather than just obstacles, we can move toward deep and lasting transformation.
