By Dr. Mary Louder, DO
“Get to the root cause.”
It’s the mantra of functional medicine. The reason so many patients find their way into my office—often after years of symptoms with no satisfying answers.
They’re tired of chasing bandaids.
They’re tired of being told “everything looks fine.”
They’re tired of being prescribed another pill or another protocol without ever being asked:
“How are you? No, really. How are you—emotionally, relationally, spiritually?”
And that’s where I want to begin today.
Because while functional medicine has done a beautiful job expanding the conversation—from gut health to detox pathways to genetic SNPs—it often stops short of where the deepest roots live:
In the emotional body.
In the stories we carry.
In the wounds that don’t show up on lab results but scream through our physiology.
This is what I call soul-informed functional medicine—and it’s where I believe the true root cause lives.
The Missing Layer in Functional Medicine
Let’s start with this: functional medicine is powerful.
It’s evidence-based, systems-informed, and rooted in prevention and personalization.
But even with all the right labs, the perfect elimination diet, the smartest supplement stack…
patients can still feel stuck.
Why?
Because physiology doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
It exists in relationship—with your thoughts, your emotions, your trauma history, your beliefs, and your nervous system.
Functional medicine isn’t wrong.
It’s just incomplete without the emotional body.
I’ve had patients come in who’ve done everything right on paper. Their GI Map looks better. Their hormones are stabilizing. Their blood sugar is perfect. And yet…
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They’re still tired.
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They’re still inflamed.
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They’re still anxious or in pain.
And when we finally slow down and start listening to the emotions underneath the symptoms? That’s when the healing starts to click.
The Biology of Emotional Suppression
Let’s be clear: this is not "woo."
This is neuro-immunology, stress physiology, and epigenetics.
When we ignore emotional pain—when we bury anger, grief, shame, or fear—it doesn’t evaporate. It embeds.
Unprocessed emotions activate the same stress response as a physical threat:
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Cortisol spikes.
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Gut permeability increases.
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Blood pressure rises.
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Immune dysregulation follows.
Over time, the body starts to speak what the soul hasn’t been allowed to say.
What we call “chronic symptoms” are often the long arc of emotional truths waiting to be metabolized.
Case in Point: When the Body Speaks What the Mouth Can’t
Let me give you an example (details changed for privacy).
A woman in her early 40s came to see me with persistent fatigue and gut issues. She’d been to 4 practitioners. Tried 3 protocols. Removed gluten, dairy, sugar, and joy (as I sometimes joke—but not really).
Labs showed some dysbiosis and low cortisol—but nothing dramatic.
What shifted things?
We stopped focusing just on her food…
and started talking about the grief of her divorce.
The perfectionism she carried from childhood.
The fact that her fatigue started the same week she left her marriage.
Within a few sessions of integrating this emotional layer—through journaling, somatic work, and gentle nervous system support—her digestion improved. Her energy rose. Her labs didn’t shift immediately, but she did.
And that is root-cause medicine.
The Root Is Relational, Not Just Biochemical
One of the hardest things to admit in medicine is this:
There’s no single root cause.
What we call “the root” is usually a tangle of roots:
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Genetic tendencies
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Environmental inputs
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Gut and detox capacity
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Nervous system resilience
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And yes, emotional history
The patient with mold illness may also be carrying trauma from childhood abandonment.
The woman with adrenal fatigue may be burning out from over-caregiving and not feeling safe to rest.
The man with migraines may be suppressing decades of rage he never had permission to express.
You can’t fix that with magnesium alone.
Functional medicine that doesn’t account for emotional and spiritual health risks becoming another reductionist model—just with fancier supplements.
Functional Doesn’t Mean Fragmented
The gift of functional medicine is that it teaches us everything is connected.
But somewhere along the way, the emotional terrain got left out of the intake forms. We ask about sleep, poop, diet, and toxins—but not often about grief, heartbreak, or shame.
And yet those are some of the most inflammatory experiences a person can have.
What if we asked:
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What are you holding onto that isn’t yours to carry?
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Where are you saying “yes” when you mean “no”?
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When did this symptom begin—and what else was happening in your life at that time?
This isn’t just therapy. It’s pattern recognition.
It’s medicine of the soul and the body.
It’s root-cause work that goes deeper than methylation pathways.
The Science of Emotion as Root Cause
We now have decades of research affirming what many of us know intuitively:
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are directly correlated with chronic illness.
Trauma alters the immune system.
Shame suppresses vagal tone.
Unexpressed emotions are stored in the fascia and nervous system.
Books like The Body Keeps the Score (van der Kolk) and When the Body Says No (Maté) are no longer fringe—they’re foundational.
It’s not either/or.
It’s functional medicine + emotional integration = sustainable healing.
🔍 How I Work With Emotional Root Causes
In my practice, here’s how we bring emotions into the mix—not to bypass the body, but to befriend it:
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We map timelines of emotional events alongside medical symptoms.
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We ask about belief systems, early life experiences, and relationship patterns—not just supplements and diets.
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We use tools like journaling prompts, guided imagery, somatic awareness, and breathwork alongside labs and protocols.
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We work slowly—because the body opens when it feels safe, not rushed.
This isn’t psychotherapy.
It’s soul-informed functional medicine.
It’s about bringing all parts of the person into the room—and into the healing.
💖 Healing Is Not Just About Fixing—It’s About Witnessing
One of the most powerful moments in a patient’s healing journey isn’t when their labs normalize. It’s when they finally feel seen. Not just as a case, but as a person.
Sometimes the most healing thing I can say in a visit is:
“That makes sense. Your body isn’t betraying you—it’s trying to protect you.”
When we stop seeing emotions as enemies of progress—and instead as allies in healing—we unlock something extraordinary.
🌿 Conclusion: True Root-Cause Medicine Includes the Soul
So, to my fellow functional medicine colleagues, I offer this invitation:
Go deeper. Ask the harder questions. Get curious about the emotional roots.
And to my patients and readers:
If you’ve felt dismissed, fragmented, or like “the labs don’t match the way I feel”—you’re not crazy. You’re wise.
You’re feeling the truth that:
Your symptoms are not separate from your story.
Your body isn’t broken—it’s brilliant.
And your healing starts when your whole self is invited into the room.
This is root-cause medicine, reimagined.
Not just to fix—but to understand.
To integrate.
To truly heal.
Ready to explore the emotional root causes of your symptoms?
📬 Book a virtual or in-person consult at drmarylouder.com
📖 Or read more in our September blog series on emotions + healing