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Konspiratoriskt tänkande

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When it comes to vaccines - why are people talking about 'Alternatives to vaccination' ?

Good lifestyles, hygiene and personal responsibility are preferable to vaccines

Some people will reject vaccinations based on unwarranted beliefs.  For example, the claim that the body has a ‘natural healing potential’ or that ‘natural’ is always better. This may lead people to believe that suffering a ‘natural’ disease in order to achieve subsequent immunity is preferable to being vaccinated, which is the exact opposite of the actual risks.

Many adherents of ‘alternative medicine’ hold unwarranted beliefs and are sceptical of vaccinations.

Research has shown that these unwarranted beliefs are particularly shaped by ‘cognitive variables’, a psychological term which describes the ways in which people process information.

It is these cognitive variables that separate unwarranted beliefs from conspiracist beliefs, which is primarily influenced by perceived threat and emotional variables.

These cognitive variables include:

  • An intuitive cognitive style; accepting ‘gut feeling’ as a better guide to truth than evidence.
  • Ontological confusions; people may struggle to differentiate metaphorical from factual statements, for example taking statements that ‘trees can sense the wind’ or ‘old furniture knows things about the past’ literally.
  • Being receptive to pseudo-profound statements, for example considering a statement such as ‘wholeness quiets infinite phenomena’ to be profound.
  • Susceptibility to causal illusions; believing that one event affects another when in fact there is no causal relationship, for example that your favourite football team won a game because everybody watching it from home was wearing the team jersey.

This theme claims that at best, vaccines are unnecessary because there are other ways one can avoid diseases or severe symptoms.

These presumed alternatives may include behavioural measures such as sanitation, quarantine and hygiene, and lifestyle choices such as exercise and cleanliness. They often also include nutritional elements such as organic and GMO-free food and vitamin supplements, as well as personal responsibility such as preventing exposure and ‘being careful’. This theme does not necessarily advocate naturalistic treatments but can include them as well in the forms of reducing ‘toxins’ or using herbs, essential oils and other CAM remedies.

These presumed alternatives may constitute a distraction from better disease-prevention methods. They may also take precedence over other important things such as self-care and or looking after children.

Ligger det någon sanning i det?

Good lifestyles, hygiene and personal responsibility are important components in the fight against diseases. Practising a healthy lifestyle can improve your health in nearly every regard and can decrease your risk of disease. Hygiene and personal responsibility, such as washing hands and keeping your distance, can help reduce the transmission of pathogens. Healthy lifestyles are promoted by health care professionals because they help prevent or may palliate some diseases. It is good to hold these healthy lifestyles in high regard.

Vad kan jag säga till någon som är fixerad vid denna övertygelse?

En dialog mellan patienter och hälso- och sjukvårdspersonal är mest produktiv om man förhåller sig empatiskt och ger patienten möjlighet att bekräfta de underliggande orsakerna till attityden, samt att man uttrycker förståelse för dessa. Därför är det viktigt att förstå attitydgrunden bakom personers uppenbara åsikter. Att bekräfta en persons underliggande attitydgrund innebär inte att vi måste instämma i detaljerna i deras argument. Vi kan till exempel bekräfta att:

Good lifestyles, hygiene and personal responsibility are important components in the fight against diseases. Practising a healthy lifestyle can improve your health in nearly every regard and can decrease your risk of disease. Hygiene and personal responsibility, such as washing hands and keeping your distance, can help reduce the transmission of pathogens. Healthy lifestyles are promoted by health care professionals because they help prevent or may palliate some diseases. It is good to hold these healthy lifestyles in high regard.



Efter att ha lagt grunden genom denna (partiella) bekräftelse kan vi gå vidare till att korrigera patientens särskilda missuppfattning.

Vaccines are another important part of a healthy lifestyle, because they train our body to fight off diseases.

It is impossible to completely eliminate exposure to diseases, no matter what you eat or how active your lifestyle is, because it is impossible to live completely isolated from society.

No other preventative measures can rival the protection offered by vaccination against infectious diseases that otherwise kill or harm people. We should therefore make vaccines part of a healthy lifestyle, which should have many components, each of which deal with different health threats. There is no single practice that can protect against all threats to our health, as diseases have diverse origins and respond to different preventative measures and treatments.

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