Treating Both Symptoms and Root Causes

CORE DEFINITION

In this framework the branch is the surface symptom and the root is the underlying cause, and treatment addresses both. The core proposition is that relieving the symptom without the cause guarantees recurrence, while pursuing the cause alone may be too slow to prevent immediate harm. The key qualification is that priority depends on urgency: in an acute crisis the branch comes first, in a stable situation the root comes first, and the two tracks must be sequenced rather than simply run in parallel.