No no no. Recognizing this stuff as BS is about the best anyone can do. These aren't well defined abstractions, they're ritual incantations. Discomfort with them, to the point of revulsion, is a sign of a healthy mind.
They're giving you all these definitions. Is there anything you're supposed to do with them, besides chant them back on a test?
I engage my fiction / roleplaying modules to deal with it. "Okay, we're in a magical world where auras are real, people are energy patterns, and magic powers can heal them but only through technological interventions. How will my Level 2 Nurse character deal with Condition C? Let's see what I have in my inventory..."
I'm currently writing an essay for one of my classes, 'Theoretical Foundations of Nursing.' I'm about the most 'gong-si' class I've ever taken. (That is a Chinese term for 'shit talking,' which is my boyfriend's favourite term for any field that gets into arguments over definitions, has concepts that don't correspond to any empirical phenomena, is based on ideology, etc.)
The essay involves analyzing a clinical situation (in this case a 55-year-old recently divorced, recently unemployed man, admitted to the psychiatric ward with major depression and suicidal ideation) using a theory (in this case, Roy's Adaptation Model). Done. The next step involves finding criticisms with the model...and despite the fact that I've been complaining about this class and its non-empirical nature all semester, I seem unable to come up with specific criticisms of what this nursing theory is missing.
Which is what I need your help for, because LessWrong is the best community ever when it comes to specific criticisms.
Here is a very brief overview of Roy's Adaptation Theory:
Now my question is, what is a specific criticism I can make of this particular theory in general...not "your definitions aren't specific enough" or "the whole field of nursing theory isn't reductionist enough", but something that this kind of theory should have but doesn't. Any ideas?