In the Japanese anime Mononoke, the medicine seller said that to kill a Mononoke, we must first know its shape (symptoms), truth (of origin), and reason (of existence).

Somehow, this is a pretty good template to kill psychological illness. Incidentally (or not), a Mononoke itself is created when an unnatural spirit is bound to the earth by a strong negative emotion. But I digress.

First, we must see the symptoms of the illness. If we don’t know what illness we are dealing with, we won’t know how to kill it. And the way to know what illness we are facing, we must see the symptoms.

When we are sick, it takes a certain courage and honesty to see the symptoms in ourselves. When it’s other that is sick, we need to be empathic and observant to see the symptoms.

Seeing the symptoms is easy compared to knowing the truth of origin. Some things are kept away from the public eyes. Past traumas, crimes, misfortunes, sins, corruption, wrongdoings, etc. Things that are swept and kept under the rug to avoid rattling the current reality.

However, if we want to kill the illness, the curer must know in what manner the illness is born. Otherwise, we can only treat the symptoms.

The last part is to know the illness’s reason of existence. Many psychological disorders are created as a defense mechanism or a crutch.

If we just kill the illness without knowing what wound it covers, we’re just exposing the sick person’s wound to unclean air, which is dangerous. The wound might get infected, become worse, and the illness will come back stronger.

If the illness is a crutch and we suddenly destroy it, the sick person might end up being disabled (unable to function normally as a human being).

Hence, we must know why (for what purpose) the illness exists.

Once we have these three pieces of information, we can kill the psychological disorder.

First, we treat the wound and strengthen the sick person so that he no longer needs the illness. We do this by addressing its truth of origin little by little but consistently over a period of time and also by encouraging the sick person to take alternative solutions that can help cover the wound and strengthen him.

Once the person is strong enough, we show the truth in its fullness to him: “Hey. You have this psychological disorder called [the name of the illness]. We know this because you sometimes exhibit [symptoms of the illness]. In your case, this happens because you have experienced [the truth of the illness’s origin] in the past. Your illness is not a bad thing because it helps you [reason for the illness’s existence]. But it could be treated in a more constructive way by doing [alternative solutions that can be done].”

Once the person is strong enough (when he doesn’t need the illness anymore because he’s doing the alternative solutions; when he accept that what he had is an illness that needs to be killed), then the illness will be destroyed.