Dealing with Criticism, Hate, and Dogma as an Evidence-Informed Practitioner
If you put your thoughts, beliefs, or work out into the world, whether that’s on social media, in your clinic, or in conversations with other professionals, you are going to face criticism. Not just occasionally, probably consistently.
And this doesn’t just apply to social media. This shows up in professional circles, interdisciplinary conversations, and even within your own field. If you have strong beliefs about anything, there will always be someone who disagrees with you, and in many cases, they won’t be subtle about it. Before we talk about how to handle that, it’s important to clarify what it actually means to be evidence-informed, because a lot of the conflict stems from a misunderstanding of that concept.
What Evidence-Informed Practice Actually Means
Most people think evidence-informed practice means doing only what research says works. That’s not accurate. Evidence-informed practice exists at the intersection of three things:
Scientific evidence
The client’s beliefs and individuality
The practitioner’s expertise and experience
Research matters. It tells us what tends to work under controlled conditions. But there are limitations. Some things are difficult, if not impossible, to measure, and if something can’t be measured well, it’s very hard to study.
Take movement, for example. It’s much easier to measure mechanics at the knee than it is at the spine. We can quantify things like valgus or varus at the knee and clearly see how those mechanics influence joint stress and long-term outcomes. But trying to measure the relative motion between spinal segments like L5/S1 versus L3/L4 is significantly more complex and often requires expensive imaging.
So when research is limited in certain areas, that doesn’t mean those things don’t matter. It means they’re harder to study. This is where expertise and experience come in. Over time, you develop the ability to assess movement quality, recognize patterns, and apply principles grounded in biomechanics and physics. There may not always be a paper that validates every observation, but absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence.
The second component is the client’s beliefs. If someone believes something will help them, that belief alone can influence outcomes. We see this consistently in research on placebo and expectation effects. That doesn’t mean we abandon education, but it does mean we have to work within the client’s framework, not against it.
At the end of the day, being evidence-informed means integrating all three, not blindly following one.
Why People Become Combative
Once you start sharing your perspective, especially if it challenges common narratives, you will encounter people who disagree with you—and some of them will be aggressive about it. This is particularly common between adjacent professions. For example, if you believe in the value of manual therapy, there are practitioners who will push back hard against that idea. I’ve had people tell me I’m wasting my time promoting soft tissue work, foam rolling, or mobility work.
The reality is that people can become very dogmatic. They attach strongly to their beliefs and feel the need to defend them, sometimes by tearing down opposing views. It can become less about discussion and more about proving a point. If you’re not prepared for that, it can be discouraging enough to make you question whether you should speak up at all.
The Reality: Not Everyone Has to Like You
One of the most useful perspectives I’ve carried with me came from my grandmother: You can be the juiciest peach in the world, and there will always be someone who doesn’t like peaches. Some people are not going to like you, your approach, or your perspective, and it’s not your responsibility to change that.
If you’re doing anything meaningful or different, you are going to stand out, and that naturally invites both support and criticism. The goal is not to be universally liked. The goal is to be aligned with what you believe is true and useful. This requires a willingness to be disliked.
Most Disagreements Are Misunderstandings
In many cases, the people criticizing you probably agree with you more than they realize. A lot of conflict comes from a lack of context. When you’re communicating in short-form content or brief conversations, you can’t include every nuance. People often take a small piece of what you said and interpret it in a way that wasn’t intended.
I’ve found that when those same individuals are willing to have a real conversation, whether that’s in a direct message or in person, there’s usually far more agreement than disagreement. Once context is added, things tend to align. That’s an important reminder: not all criticism is rooted in opposition. Sometimes it’s just an incomplete understanding.
Some Criticism Isn’t About You
There’s another category of criticism that’s different. This is the kind that isn’t constructive, isn’t logical, and isn’t trying to move the conversation forward. It’s just aggressive or personal.
When you look closely at this type of response, the motivation is usually not about accuracy or truth. If it were, that person would be creating their own content, presenting their ideas, and contributing to the conversation in a productive way. Instead, what you often see is something closer to frustration, insecurity, or comparison. It’s less about what you said and more about how your work makes them feel. That doesn’t make it easier to receive, but it should change how you interpret it.
Respond, Don’t React
It’s normal to feel something when people criticize you, especially when it’s harsh or personal. The instinct to defend yourself is human. But there’s a difference between feeling that reaction and acting on it. What has helped me is recognizing that not all criticism deserves a response, and not all responses need to be immediate. When you understand that some of these reactions are more about the other person than they are about you, it becomes easier to step back and not engage emotionally.
That doesn’t mean you ignore everything. Constructive criticism, especially when it’s grounded in logic and evidence, is valuable. If anything, being wrong is an opportunity to learn, and that’s something I actively seek out.But not every comment is an opportunity for growth. Some are just noise.
Final Thoughts
If you are putting yourself out there: sharing ideas, teaching, creating, or trying to contribute to your field, you are going to face resistance. That’s part of the process. Doing meaningful work requires a certain level of courage, not just in what you say, but in your willingness to stand by it. The goal is not to avoid criticism. It’s to learn how to navigate it without letting it pull you away from the work you believe in. Because at the end of the day, it’s not the critic who counts. It’s the one who is actually in the arena (Thanks Teddy).