To Heal or Manage Symptoms
What is the core purpose of medicine?
The core of psychological research should be on the applied side, where we take a case study, do a deep dive into one person’s experiences, and then learn enormous amounts about human nature, the human mind under stress, and where psychological ailments even come from.
Even in regular medicine, such as autoimmune diseases, doctors treat the apparent symptoms rather than the underlying cause, even after understanding its mechanism. This is because the big pharmaceutical companies market the drugs in which they already have a significant market share. Those drugs usually treat symptoms since that is where the research money went before. After all, those drugs are the ones that make the pharmaceutical companies money, and they silence treatments and medications that treat the cause. Capitalism isn’t meant to be an ethical system — it’s free for all, free markets, so the richer ones get richer.
I believe we should heal diseases from the root cause instead of just treating symptoms to avoid the discomfort these diseases cause. For bipolar disorder, it’s long been heard that therapy is helpful — but how does therapy even progress? Therapists cannot help as much as the patient chooses to divulge and clarify insights themselves, and a patient can be immensely intellectual and sharp, yet they…
