Published in Psychology Today, 25th November 2016. We should avoid the unnecessary suffering of animals—no one but the most disturbed among us would disagree. Unfortunately, pointing out that this moral square peg doesn’t usually fit in the round hole of meat-eating is distasteful to many. The ideological zeal with which many preach their love for…
Category: Compassion
Why We Should Stop Avoiding the Word “Patient” in Psychiatry
Published in Psychology Today on 23rd August 2016. “My first memorable experience of psychiatry as a medical student was not what I expected. Rather than my fumbling interactions with psychotic patients, or witnessing electroconvulsive therapy first-hand, I was struck by repeatedly hearing words that had me wondering whether I was interning for a law firm: “consumer” and “client.” To my…
Video: The Illusion of Free Will & Mental Illness Stigma
Our path toward a more compassionate world for those suffering from mental illness can be illuminated by the light of acknowledging the illusory nature of free will.
The Illusion of Free Will and Mental Illness Stigma
Published in Psychology Today, 17th March 2016: ‘The Illusion of Free Will and Mental Illness Stigma’. Excerpt: “If the mind is truly free, it is only logical to extrapolate that illness of the mind must also be free; free to change on a whim, or at least free to change if one chose to do so. In a free and…
Baby Asha: How You Can Support Her
Published in the Independent Australia, 26th February 2016: Baby Asha: How you can support her Excerpt: “Empathy can kindle the flames of compassion, but we require someone to thoughtfully and dispassionately fan those flames in the right direction. Left to our own devices in a third-world country, we would disproportionately give to an individual. Charities use…
Baby Asha Decision Sets Risky Precedent
Published in the Sydney Morning Herald, 22nd February 2016: Baby Asha Decision Sets Risky Precedent. Excerpt: “The problem here is the irrationality of empathy: the imaginative capacity to place ourselves in another’s situation. As psychologist Paul Bloom has said: “If you want to be good and do good, empathy is a poor guide”. Empathy favours an individual…
Letter From The Rubble Of A Salon Article
Published in The Daily Banter, 11th January 2016: ‘Letter From The Rubble Of A Salon Article’ As The Daily Banter said, “Steve Stankevicius published an article on Salon.com, only for the editors to distort what he said and refuse to change it. This follows a worrying trend on a site that claims to be a serious…
New Atheists Must Become New Vegans: Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and the extra burden on moral leaders
Published on Salon, 10th January 2016: “New atheists must become new vegans: Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and the extra burden on moral leaders”. As some of you might know, Salon altered the title of the article without my consent to include the words “must”, “moral leaders”, and include the names of Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins. This was misleading,…
Is Medicine Infected By Religion?
You wouldn’t have noticed, but there may have been someone else in the consultation room when you last saw your doctor. If this someone else was a medical student or a nurse you would be asked to give consent for their presence. However, in this case, it’s unlikely your permission was sought. What’s more unnerving…
Execution: The Death of Compassion
The recent execution of two Australians in Indonesia for charges related to drug-trafficking has sparked an intense amount of attention and debate. Is the death penalty moral? Is it effective at preventing future crime? Is it cost effective? The fact that we are all asking these questions is a great step forward, and I thought I’d weigh in…
Steve Stankevicius 