Lesson 8: Problem-Solving vs. Relieving Symptoms

Medicines usually relieve psychological symptoms that bother us. Solutions to our problems only come with new or better ways of thinking and coping.

Everything has a better solution. We just have to work hard at finding it, sometimes with the help of others, and then learn to use it. Changing our ways is like changing old habits. Once we have an idea of how to do something better, we have to keep practicing the new way of thinking or acting until it becomes a new habit that replaces the old one that we used whether or not it worked. Medicines do not affect the way we think or act, nor change our ways of coping, they simply relieve some of the pains or symptoms of our problems. Unfortunately, in our modern society it’s too easy for medical doctors to prescribe medicines rather than to seek out the roots of our problems and help change them. It has also become too easy for people to simply take medicines to ease their symptoms without trying to find and change the roots of those symptoms, thus having to keep repeating their self-medication endlessly.