Symptoms as Defenses I
Too often, physicians and patients alike assume that a person’s symptoms are the disease and that simply treating these symptoms is the best way to cure the patient. Such treatment is on a par with trying to unplug a car’s emergency oil light because it is flashing. Although unplugging the bulb is effective in stopping that irritating flashing light, it does nothing to change the reason it is giving its warning.
The word symptom comes from a Greek root and refers to “something that falls together with something else.” Symptoms, then, are a sign or signal of something else, and treating them does not necessarily change that “something else.”