Why Functional Medicine Alone Isn't Enough for Chronic Illness—and What Happens When You Add Psychotherapy

Functional medicine and psychotherapy connects the dots for chronic illness—especially if you've tried everything and still don’t feel well.

For many of my clients, the story starts the same way: they’ve done everything “right” and still feel off. They’ve seen the specialists, tried the diets, experimented with supplements, dabbled in therapy, taken the prescriptions, practiced meditation—and yet their symptoms persist. Fatigue, bloating, anxiety, brain fog, skin rashes, migraines, joint pain, hormonal imbalance, intrusive thoughts. Sometimes it’s one main issue. Often, it’s all of them at once.

By the time they find their way to my practice, many are overwhelmed and starting to question themselves. They’ve been told their labs look “fine.” They’ve been offered antidepressants as a catch-all. They’ve been passed between providers, each of whom addresses a single slice of their health but never the whole picture. And after all this, they’re still looking for answers.

What they don’t yet realize—but quickly come to see—is that their care has been incomplete. Not because they or their past providers didn’t try hard enough, but because the system they were navigating was built to treat symptoms in silos, not people as whole human beings. That’s the real problem—and it’s why I built Dots Wellness around something different.

I take a combined approach that blends functional medicine with integrative psychotherapy. This isn’t just two disciplines placed side-by-side. It’s a woven, root-cause, mind-body methodology that helps clients get better when nothing else has worked. And it works not because it’s trendy or alternative, but because it’s complete.

I named by business Dots Wellness because I connect the dots other providers miss: I'm the rare practitioner who is truly skilled at healing the whole person — both mind and body. I heal root cause of chronic illness by integrating two distinct fields: functional medicine and psychotherapy.

Most care models only treat one half of the equation.

The traditional healthcare model tends to divide the mind from the body. If you’re struggling with digestive issues, you’ll see a GI doctor. If your hormones are off, you’ll get referred to an endocrinologist. If you’re anxious or depressed, you’ll be routed to a therapist or psychiatrist. Each of these providers may be well-meaning and skilled, but they’re typically operating in their own lane—often without communicating with each other or seeing the broader picture of your health.

Even in the wellness world, care tends to be fragmented. You might work with a nutritionist for gut health, a functional medicine provider for fatigue, and a coach or therapist for emotional support. While these practitioners offer helpful tools, they’re often not trained to connect the dots between systems—or to explore how physiological imbalances are shaping your mood, behavior, energy, and brain function.

This is where the standard approaches fall short. When care is fragmented, you may get temporary relief or partial improvements. But true healing—deep, lasting, whole-person healing—requires addressing both the physical and psychological root causes at the same time. Without that, symptoms will continue to recur, shift, or spiral. You may feel like you’re chasing your tail, trying one protocol after another, never quite landing on what actually works.

Functional medicine provides the “why” behind the symptoms.

Functional medicine is the foundation of my approach because it seeks to uncover and address the root causes of illness, not just the surface-level symptoms. Rather than asking, “What pill matches this problem?” we ask, “What’s driving this dysfunction in the first place?”

Using advanced functional lab testing—like metabolic panels, organic acid panels, hormone mapping, cortisol rhythm analysis, mycotoxin panels, and nutrient assessments—we’re able to detect imbalances that often go overlooked in conventional care. These may include gut dysbiosis, chronic infections, mold toxicity, mitochondrial dysfunction, hormone imbalances, blood sugar dysregulation, or detoxification issues.

Clients are often shocked at what we find. Many have been told for years that “everything looks normal,” only to discover on functional labs that their gut microbiome is a mess, their cortisol is bottomed out, or they’re loaded with environmental toxins. These aren’t hypothetical problems—they’re measurable, fixable, and very real contributors to the symptoms they’ve been living with.

From there, we craft a highly personalized plan using nutrition, targeted supplementation, lifestyle changes, and nervous system support. It’s not about throwing 20 pills at someone—it’s about rebuilding their biochemistry in a strategic, evidence-informed way that supports healing at the cellular level.

But without addressing the nervous system, healing won’t stick.

Functional medicine is powerful, but it’s not enough on its own. One of the most overlooked barriers to healing is an overactivated or dysregulated nervous system. Many of the clients I work with have been living in fight-or-flight for years—often without realizing it. Chronic stress, trauma (big or small), anxiety, OCD patterns, and emotional overwhelm keep the body locked in a survival response. In this state, digestion slows, detox pathways stall, hormones become erratic, and inflammation skyrockets.

You can take all the right supplements, eat the perfect anti-inflammatory diet, and still struggle to make progress if your nervous system doesn’t feel safe. The body won’t shift into healing mode if it’s constantly scanning for threat. That’s where integrative psychotherapy comes in.

As a licensed therapist trained in trauma-informed care, I bring a depth of psychological understanding to the functional medicine process. We don’t just run labs and fix the gut—we explore your relationship to your body, your health history, your beliefs about healing, and your behavioral patterns. We work on calming your system, shifting out of reactivity, and resolving the emotional blocks that may be holding your body in a chronic state of tension.

This is especially important for clients with OCD, anxiety, ADHD, and complex trauma, where the brain is stuck in repetitive loops or hypervigilance. You can’t supplement your way out of a dysregulated brain. But when we pair targeted physiological support with nervous system regulation, the results are often profound.

The synergy is what makes the difference.

Most of my clients don’t need “more care”—they need the right care, delivered in a way that acknowledges the full complexity of who they are. That’s the heart of my practice. I don’t believe in segmenting people into organ systems or treatment tracks. I believe in addressing the whole person—body, mind, and biochemistry—in a way that finally makes sense.

That means I might be reviewing your mycotoxin results while also helping you untangle the mental load of motherhood, your work burnout, or the fear that your symptoms are all in your head. We might be optimizing your B vitamins and gut flora while also noticing how perfectionism or emotional suppression is playing out in your health patterns.

This is full-spectrum care. It’s not fast or surface-level. But it’s effective—especially for the people who’ve tried everything else.

What happens when we work this way.

When we take a truly integrative approach, the changes are often both physical and emotional. Gut issues resolve. Energy returns. Brain fog lifts. PMS disappears. Sleep improves. Anxiety becomes manageable. Compulsive behaviors reduce. Clients report feeling more resilient, more grounded, more like themselves again.

But more than anything, they feel empowered. They understand what’s happening in their body. They feel seen. They stop blaming themselves. And for many, it’s the first time they’ve felt hopeful in years.

Healing becomes possible—not because they finally found “the cure,” but because someone finally connected the dots and helped them create a roadmap that works.

If this sounds like it might be what you're looking for, I invite you to learn more about my approach here.

If you’ve tried everything and still feel unwell, you’re not crazy.

Let me say that again: you’re not crazy. Your symptoms are real. Your labs may have missed something. Your body is not broken—it’s communicating. And your mind is not the problem—it’s part of the solution.

If you’re tired of piecing together care from a dozen different providers, tired of protocols that don’t stick, tired of being told “everything looks fine,” I invite you to do something different.

This isn’t conventional care, and it’s not alternative guesswork either. It’s personalized, root-cause, integrative healing that actually works—especially when nothing else has.

Ready to finally get answers?

If this resonates, I invite you to book a 360° Deep Dive with me here. This is more than a consultation—it’s the beginning of a new path. One that’s rooted in science, informed by psychology, and tailored to you.

Let’s figure out what’s actually going on—and start the healing process you’ve been searching for.