I grew up trying very hard to be "the good girl" in the family. My older sister was pretty rebellious, and my younger sister was painfully shy and introverted. I always tried very hard to be the kid that didn't cause any waves, and went along with things, without causing any trouble, and without asking too many questions.
My older sister questioned everything. She remembers things from our childhood that I have no recollection of. She was always nosey (but silently nosey), listening and analyzing everything around her, while I preferred to live in my own little bubble of a world, tuning people out for the most part, and never questioning authority or the things I was told to do.
When I got older, someone talked to me about Critical Thinking. She said she had taken a class on it, and she encouraged me to look into it myself. I had heard the term before, but had no idea what it meant. When you've listened to orders and tried to be the good girl for most of your life, it can feel really wrong to question authority, but if this is a skill you never develop.... it can cost you your health, or possibly even your life.
I think of critical thinking, basically, as, questioning all the facts you are given by particular individuals. While you might be getting some useful information, you have to ask yourself, "Does this person have all of the facts? Or could there be any reason why all the facts are not being presented to me? Could they be trying to 'steer me' into their way of thinking, for a particular reason? And even though they would swear up and down that they are right, could be a chance that there is something they could have overlooked, or a new treatment they might not be aware of?"
You also have to ask yourself, could there be some kind of regulations that are forcing a person to say what they are saying, or preventing a person from saying what they really want to? I can tell you from my own experience that what I say and do not say on this blog is, in part, guided in part by FDA regulations. I don't want to get in trouble, and neither do your doctors! There are many regulations in the US that can prevent people (myself included) from saying everything that's on our minds. And there are certain statements that have to be made in order to stay within legal boundaries. So please understand that a lot of times, it will be up to YOU to read between the lines decipher the gray matter.
Although I wouldn't say that doctors are bad people, I definitely began to question why doctors told me what they were telling me. The fact was, they had let me down many times in the past. Were they just telling me what they knew, because it was all they were taught? Or because they had something to gain, if I didn't heal from this condition a hundred percent? I realized that most doctors are given a standard protocol. They're taught almost nothing about nutrition, and very little about prevention. They're not taught to think outside the box. Their job is usually to follow a standard protocol, and not veer too far from it.
I feel like my life started to change, when I started to ask more questions. So I wanted to share the concept of Critical Thinking with anyone else who hasn't looked into it (as I hadn't, until my 30's).
I'm going to make a separate post, about all the different doctors I have had, who did not give me all the facts I needed, in order to take care of the issue I was seeing them for. There were many. You can see some of my stories, about how I had to figure out ways to cure my own issues, when doctors didn't seem to have solutions that worked. But for now...
Here is a definition I found, about Critical Thinking, from the Critical Thinking Community (online).
Defining Critical Thinking
Critical thinking...the awakening of the intellect to the study of itself.
Critical thinking is a rich concept that has been developing throughout the past 2500 years. The term "critical thinking" has its roots in the mid-late 20th century. We offer here overlapping definitions, together which form a substantive, transdisciplinary conception of critical thinking.
Critical Thinking as Defined by the National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking, 1987
A statement by Michael Scriven & Richard Paul, presented at the 8th Annual International Conference on Critical Thinking and Education Reform, Summer 1987.
Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness.
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It entails the examination of those structures or elements of thought implicit in all reasoning: purpose, problem, or question-at-issue; assumptions; concepts; empirical grounding; reasoning leading to conclusions; implications and consequences; objections from alternative viewpoints; and frame of reference. Critical thinking — in being responsive to variable subject matter, issues, and purposes — is incorporated in a family of interwoven modes of thinking, among them: scientific thinking, mathematical thinking, historical thinking, anthropological thinking, economic thinking, moral thinking, and philosophical thinking.
Critical thinking can be seen as having two components: 1) a set of information and belief generating and processing skills, and 2) the habit, based on intellectual commitment, of using those skills to guide behavior. It is thus to be contrasted with: 1) the mere acquisition and retention of information alone, because it involves a particular way in which information is sought and treated; 2) the mere possession of a set of skills, because it involves the continual use of them; and 3) the mere use of those skills ("as an exercise") without acceptance of their results.
Critical thinking varies according to the motivation underlying it. When grounded in selfish motives, it is often manifested in the skillful manipulation of ideas in service of one’s own, or one's groups’, vested interest. As such it is typically intellectually flawed, however pragmatically successful it might be. When grounded in fairmindedness and intellectual integrity, it is typically of a higher order intellectually, though subject to the charge of "idealism" by those habituated to its selfish use.
Critical thinking of any kind is never universal in any individual; everyone is subject to episodes of undisciplined or irrational thought. Its quality is therefore typically a matter of degree and dependent on, among other things, the quality and depth of experience in a given domain of thinking or with respect to a particular class of questions. No one is a critical thinker through-and-through, but only to such-and-such a degree, with such-and-such insights and blind spots, subject to such-and-such tendencies towards self-delusion. For this reason, the development of critical thinking skills and dispositions is a life-long endeavor.
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Please always keep in mind that doctors are not GOD. There are many, many alternative treatments out there that are very effective, and helpful to the human body, but a doctor is very unlikely to ever tell you about them. Doctors are only human. Most of them don't know about alternative treatments that work. They are not able to tell you every little thing that's best for you. Sometimes you have to use your own resources to be able to look up things that could help you.
I'm not saying never listen to doctors. If you have cancer, you are supposed to be under a doctor's care. But I think it is critical that you evaluate all the recommendations that are being presented to you, whether they're from a doctor or someone like me, on the internet. Ask where the facts are coming from, and what is a person's motivation? Does this person have limitations in what they know? Are they just giving an illusion that they really do have all the answers, because they are wearing a white coat? These are questions that you owe it to yourself, to ask. Your life could depend on it.
Ualani
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