Do you wish you had a diagnosis?

They're treating the collection of symptoms that led to the diagnosis in the first place. I don't really think about a diagnosis as needing a discreet, well-established cause in order to be legitimate. I think about it more as a convenient short-hand for a collection of troubling symptoms. Those symptoms can be primarily psychological (GAD as I experience it, for instance) primarily physical (Fibromyalgia comes to mind) or both (MDD as some people experience it).

Causally unexplained diagnoses represent gaps in knowledge and should be studied by the people who care about such things, but you don't necessarily need to understand cause to effectively treat symptoms and improve quality of life. Hell, I'd wade to the middle of a river and rub mustard on my armpits if it made me feel better, explanation be damned.

Your point about holistic treatment is well-taken, though.

For the most part, a client diagnosed with GAD or depression is in therapy to treat "symptoms" that are most distressing. Outside of being court ordered, therapy is generally voluntary. Given that, an individual who seeks treatment may have an idea of what they want to work on. Depression or anxiety in of themselves don't necessarily need to be treated with therapy.

I totally hear you about addressing symptoms as part of healthcare and doing whatever helps, but if an actual diagnosis is never made and all you do is treat symptoms, you create a population of chronically ill people who depend on therapy and drugs to function, and the practice of healthcare becomes nothing more than disease care.

Anxiety can be caused by a simple magnesium deficiency or heavy metal toxicity or many other things. But lots of practitioners are not trained to sort through such things.

patient: I suffer from depression, rage, and anxiety.
doctor: You have Depression-Rage-Anxiety Disorder.
patient: What's the cause?
doctor: It's probably genetic, or bad luck, or you did something wrong or incredibly stupid.
patient: How do we treat it?
doctor: You can go talk to a therapist, or I can give you pills to make the symptoms slightly less troublesome, and as a bonus the pills will create new symptoms that require more pills.
patient: That sounds great, cuz it's like magic.
doctor: Yea and I don't have to brother figuring out the underling cause. It's a win-win.
[high five]