Stop Playing Whac-A-Mole With Trauma
Psychology Today
by Irene Hurford MDFebruary 23, 2026
AI-Generated Deep Dive Summary
When treating complex mental health issues, it’s common to see patients with multiple psychiatric diagnoses—like major depressive disorder, anorexia nervosa, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or schizoaffective disorder. But according to experts, these symptoms aren’t separate disorders; they’re often expressions of unprocessed trauma. Using the analogy of Whac-A-Mole, where each mole represents a symptom, whacking one down (like managing suicidality) only for another to pop up (such as restrictive eating or mania), the root cause is the machine driving the system—early trauma.
This trauma can stem from abuse, neglect, or insecure attachments during childhood, before the individual could articulate their experiences. Instead of being described in words, this trauma becomes embedded in the body and mind, manifesting as symptoms that communicate ongoing distress. These symptoms are not random but attempts to express unprocessed pain.
In an era dominated by biological psychiatry, these symptoms are often treated as distinct disorders requiring separate interventions. However, treating them as isolated issues misses the bigger picture: they’re all linked to the
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Originally published on Psychology Today on 2/23/2026