Why Therapy Alone Isn’t Enough: A Therapist’s Guide to Functional Medicine Root Causes of Mental Health

Learn how addressing functional medicine root causes of mental health issues, like nutrition, toxins, and stress biology, can help therapists improve therapy outcomes and reduce burnout.

The Magic We Hope For in the Therapy Room

If you’re a therapist, you know the magic that can happen in the therapy room: A client comes in and shares their story, you build strong rapport, you formulate goals and a plan, and it pays off magically. The client gets dramatic results, is incredibly thankful, tells all their friends about you, and you both live happily ever after. 

These are the client cases that keep us going, right? These are the scenarios we dreamed of when we decided to go into mental health care, and are one of the reasons why we chose to be therapists in the first place. We want to help people. This has been our driving force, through student loans, difficult coursework, grueling exams, and all of the rest of the hoops it takes to get to licensure. 

When Therapy Isn’t Enough

But if you’ve been in the field a while, you also know this sad reality: despite your best efforts (and even with evidence-based methods) many therapy clients don’t get better. Even with thoughtful planning, you might notice that your clients:

1. Get only marginally better

2. Don’t experience any symptom relief, even when they learn important things from your sessions

3. Or worse, they deteriorate during treatment

This is a common experience for many therapists and mental health professionals passionate about improving therapy outcomes and wondering what else might be going on. 

Why Traditional Approaches Fall Short

We may seek supervision, consultation, or even pursue new continuing education for therapists to sharpen our skills. While this often helps improve outcomes in some cases, it doesn’t solve the deeper issue for everyone. 

In fact, a review of current research showed that, on average, 67% of patients improved reliably by the end of treatment, leaving the remaining 33% without improvements, and 7% deteriorated.1 

An Overview of Functional Medicine for Mental Health Therapists

There can be a range of mental health root causes: social, emotional, environmental, spiritual, and biological factors impacting mental health, that contribute to why therapy isn’t working for some clients. Therapists tend to focus on emotional, stress-related, circumstantial, and social causes. 

In reality, there are often-overlooked root causes of mental health issues that traditional therapy doesn’t always address. Even if clients are receiving the best possible psychotherapy, recovery from conditions like PTSD, anxiety, or depression may stall if: 

• The client struggles to break down and absorb proteins, affecting neurotransmitter production

• They have poor gut microbiome diversity

• They’re exposed to toxins like arsenic or mold in their house or water supply

• They have nutrient deficiencies, common with the Standard American Diet

• They are sedentary and engage in little to no physical activity

• They consume excess sugar, contributing to mood and energy issues

• And countless other potential contributing factors

For these reasons, it is imperative that therapists develop an understanding of functional medicine for mental health. A functional medicine approach helps therapists understand the variety of environmental, biological, nutritional, and even spiritual root causes of patient distress in order to:

• Reduce the number of client deteriorations

• Move clients from a non-improvement population to a meaningful improvement population

• Accelerate outcomes for clients with time and/or money restraints in the number of sessions they can attend

• Achieve even better outcomes with clients who are already improving

• Ensure referrals are made to functional, integrative, and naturopathic doctors who can further elucidate biological root causes, when necessary

You Can Make a Lasting Difference With an Integrative Approach

With the right training in integrative and functional medicine for mental health, you could be the mental health professional who finally helps your client address root causes, resolving their symptoms. You are already doing important work. Why not expand your tools and reach even more people? 

Imagine how wonderful it will be to hear from your client - “you’re the one who helped me finally figure it out. I owe my recovery to you.” After all, isn’t that why you got into this field in the first place?

Get Trained in Functional Medicine for Mental Health

If you’d like to improve client outcomes as a therapist, consider enrolling in our certificate program that will train you in functional medicine for mental health. Not ready to enroll? Get started for free with our free bundle.

References

1. de Jong K, Douglas S, Wolpert M, et al. Using Progress Feedback to Enhance Treatment Outcomes: A Narrative Review. Adm Policy Ment Health. 2025;52(1):210-222. doi:10.1007/s10488-024-01381-3