Is it Better to Fix the Symptoms or the Root Cause?

I’ve heard from various people, including teachers, coaches, and engineers alike, that fixing the root cause is the preferred strategy for resolving a symptom. These folks reason that if someone fixes the root cause of a problem, the symptoms of it will also disappear. They reason that fixing the symptom is a waste of time and that energy could instead be used on finding and fixing the root cause.

That reasoning made sense to me, so I followed these people’s advice for many years. It wasn’t until recently, in the last couple of years, that I started sometimes putting energy into fixing symptoms – most notably in the context of my mental health. As I began to reflect on how exactly I had improved my self-esteem and reduced my anxiety, I realized that fixing the symptom had played a massive part in my success.

What does fixing the symptom mean, exactly? And what does finding the root cause mean? At a high level, each represents a different direction on the same axis. Root cause fixing involves looking for something wrong in a situation. Symptom fixing consists of looking for something that can improve a situation. One strategy focuses on what’s going wrong, and the other focuses on what’s going right.

I came across a video on Youtube where a Stanford professor named Sapolsky talked about depression in a very clinical manner. He spoke about the nature of depression, including what it looks like and how it can begin and end in a human. I learned a few important things from that lecture, one of which was that rumination is a feature of depression. In other words, humans who ruminate or spend time uncontrollably thinking about something negative are depressed. At that moment, I realized that my fixation with finding the root cause was driving my depressive episodes.

Instead of focusing only on the root cause at the expense of everything else, I choose a balanced approach, where finding and fixing the root cause is the emergent property of having fixed all of the symptoms. Creating a world where all of a problem’s symptoms no longer plague us is not as easy as it seems. It requires us to look at how our issues manifest and then take action to find a solution compatible with our life situation. Looking at our problems directly can be painful, and being able to move beyond that and make positive changes deserves to be celebrated.

I’ve only become aware of this practice because it has completely transformed my life. Fixing symptoms has helped me pave an unconventional path toward fixing deeply-rooted anxiety, anger, and worry issues. Instead of wondering why I was feeling anxious or thinking about how my childhood impacted my anxiety, I accepted the feeling of fear. I injected some self-care, so I didn’t feel so anxious. I’d go for a walk, watch something that made me laugh, journal, or talk to someone. The same would happen for anger, fear, and anything else that takes me off course. First, accept the feeling and do what you must to let it go.

After fixing the symptom this way, I realized I was building a habit of caring about how I was showing up in a given moment. It began to matter whether, in a moment, I was feeling anger, stress, pain, or something else. And it became okay to take space and energy to resolve those feelings if they were present. This habit is a noticeable contrast from the root cause-fixing approach. Fixing the root cause would often be at the expense of my well-being at that moment. By focusing on improving the symptom, I’m able to remedy the root cause and my well-being at the same time. I’ve found that once I’ve fixed enough related symptoms, the root problem will disappear.