The last few days talking about different things with many people I realized many believe that finding the root cause of a symptom will solve the symptom per se. This is not the case in most behaviors. You attack the behavior by changing it and in parallel you look for the rootcause.

right fully agree @geeny616, I agree that the ultimate goal is to identify the root cause. however, addressing the symptoms from day one is crucial. letting them run unchecked is a mistake. at least for me, tackling the symptoms has worked, both personally and when helping friends or people I’ve trained. But of course, these things aren’t always generalizable. in the end, this debate reflects the divide between cognitive behavioral approaches and more psychoanalytic ones. that said, even Freud didn’t fully believe that simply uncovering the root cause was enough to resolve psychological problems. we live in a society that doesn’t think in neither terms so it’s good to at least do one of the things.