Should We Treat the Peripheral or Central Aspects of Psychological Illness?

Once one notices the mental processes of emotion and observes the occurrences of emotion storms, one recognizes those as the major participant processes of psychological symptom disorders. With access to that information, we view a sequence within the disorder processes--(first) the conditions or situations that trigger an illness, (next) the dynamic mental processes that are the central aspect of the illness, and (then) the various manifestations that are the consequences of the illness. Those of us who discern symptom disorders as a coherent group of psychological disorders based in emotion storms, and are able to observe the steps in the sequence just described, find the most effective treatment comes by dealing directly with the illness processes. In contrast, none of the four mainstream schools that currently dominate the treatment market for these illnesses view the illnesses in terms of central psychological process. Instead they each focus on other elements they regard as vital aspects of illness. Three of these schools focus on conditions that trigger illness--one (Behavioral) on external and two (Cognitive and Psychoanalytic) on internal conditions that trigger the illness. The fourth view (Biological psychiatry) focuses instead on some consequences of the illness.
We can see that the four mainstream approaches resolutely work with elements in proximity to the illness, but not with the emotion storm itself. The Behavioral, Cognitive, and Psychoanalytic approaches, each in its own way, focuses on the trigger condition as the important factor. Behaviorism works with external conditions in an attempt to dull response to the trigger by wearing it out--while it ignores the psychological process of inner experience. This attempt to wear down the triggering response is comparable to the current approach in treatment of allergies, in which we have insufficient knowledge to enable us to modify the underlying process. It is comparably weak in success. Cognitive approaches work with the internal response to external conditions in an attempt to rationally persuade or teach patients that the response to the trigger is illogical, not a sensible reaction, and not something worth the excitement. However, most symptom disorder patients react as they do to trigger conditions even though they are typically conscious of the illogicality of doing so. It is rare that they are unaware that they are making mountains out of molehills. Psychoanalysis also focuses on the inner response to conditions that trigger the illness in an attempt to change the basis of reaction so that the trigger loses its effect. In contrast to those three, the biological-psychiatry approach, needing to categorize symptom disorders as brain disorders, brings an aim to chemically suppress signs or symptoms because such consequences of the psychological illness are taken for the illness. That focus on the consequences of the illness is comparable to a pediatrician ignoring chickenpox while concentrating on a child's pimples as if that is the whole of the illness.