What IS a Paradigm?
Paradigms are critical to understanding what we do, how we think, what we believe and why!
We love sharing with people what the concept of a Paradigm truly means!
It can be quite mind-boggling if you if you let it, but hopefully we can provide an accurate summary of the idea so you understand how defining your paradigm can help you in all areas of life.
The word paradigm was given its current, modern meaning by an academic historian named Thomas Kuhn in his work: "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions"
Your paradigm is
your "map," your "lens,"
your "model of the world"
Your paradigm is the ‘lens’ through which you look at the world.
It is usually a quite unconscious construct made up of your beliefs, conditioning, learning, experiences, how you were raised and more…
Check out how all-encompassing they are... (and most of us don't know what they are or work on understanding them!)
- Paradigms literally cause each of us how you think!
- How we look at life, how we make sense of, and interact with the world around us.
- Your paradigm (and ours!) will determine how we DEFINE things, concepts and ideas; it will also define the meaning we associate with them.
- Interestingly, a paradigm will determine the questions we ask, whether we choose to learn, and if so what.
- They frame the goals that we set and whether we expect to achieve them.
- They will determine the research that we do or prioritise, and also the types of answers we expect to emerge from said research, and
- They also will determine the ideas we think have value, and what we choose to share with others
– whether this be about health and healthcare or in fact any other area or focus of life.
As the process of science continues to advance, newer paradigms replace older ones when they begin to ‘fit’ our observations of the world better than their predecessor/s
We feel it is important for you to begin to explore this idea – because the only way our individual and community health is going to change, is if we collectively begin to change (or at least EXPAND) our model of helath and healthcare.
A “philosophy” is some ways an interchangeable term; philosophy integrates with paradigm – one can influence and interact with the other to create a holistic view about the world or about an individual topic. Learn about the NJC philosophy here.
Paradigms lead to the definitions or terminology we use to describe our world. When it comes to our role as health professionals, terms like ‘HEALTH,’ ‘SICKNESS’ and ‘HEALTHCARE’ have different meanings in our paradigm compared to those in the common ‘wisdom’
You can see how 'big' the framework of a paradigm can be!
The concept of a paradigm can be thought of in the ‘macro’ or large scale as we’ve described on this page, yet there can also be paradigms related to individual professions or really any distinct field of study or endeavour.
Please read more about our over-arching ‘Wellness & Prevention paradigm‘ as it relates to health and healthcare here. This deeply relates to the model of healthcare we offer.
Follow this link if you’d like to understand the microcosm concept of 3rd Paradigm Chiropractic (also an important part of what we do).