self – Steve Stankevicius

The self is an illusion: a conceptual framework for psychotherapy

Published in Australasian Psychiatry, June 2017 Edition.

Quarks, Quasars and the Mind – Stranger Than We Suppose

Originally published in Psychology Today, 9th May 2017. The following is a modified transcript of a presentation I gave at the Royal Australian & New Zealand College of Psychiatry Annual Congress held in Adelaide, May 2017. I have included some references via hyperlinks, however the content is generally indebted to inspiration from Richard Dawkins’ TED talk “Why the Universe Seems…

I Think, Therefore I’ll Die

Published in Psychology Today on 29th September 2016. Are you looking forward to reading an article about death? Probably not. Simply reading it-that-must-not-be-named can arrest us in our place. With torturous futility, we fill our heads with whatever is in mind’s reach to ignore one of the surest of facts: To paraphrase Descartes, “I think, therefore I’ll die”. The certainty that our mortality…

Why Psychiatry Should Discard The Idea of Free Will

Published in Psychology Today, 30th March 2016: ‘Why Psychiatry Should Discard The Idea of Free Will’. Excerpt: “Consider the commonly used medical expressions “organic depression”, “rule out organic causes” and “non-organic psychosis”. What do these terms mean? Organic is defined as “relating to or derived from living matter” and, when used in relation to an illness, implies there is a…

Nothing Lasts Forever: How an Atheist Copes With the Fear of Death

Published in Elephant Journal, 19th January 2016: ‘Nothing Lasts Forever: How an Atheist Copes With the Fear of Death’. Excerpt: “Death. Simply reading the word can arrest us in our place, causing an instant tingling of visceral unease. The certainty that our mortality will eventually be realized binds us not only in solidarity, but in…

Psychotherapy & The Self Illusion

Introduction This article has been written in reaction to a fear: Fear of so-called ‘biological psychiatry’. Many don’t like talking about brain scans and neural correlates in psychiatry, because when you reduce a person down to different anatomical brain regions and neurotransmitters inside the head, we don’t find a single self in there. Without a…

Video: “Psychotherapy & The Self Illusion”, RANZCP Philosophy of Psychiatry Seminar, 2015.

Recorded at the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatry Philosophy & Ethics of Psychiatry Seminar, Royal Brisbane Hospital, 10th October 2015.