Care For The Sorrowing Soul

Moral Injury is now recognized as a growing major problem for military men and women. Operant conditioning can overwhelm moral convictions and yet the question of whether "to shoot or not to shoot" often will never have a settled answer. Certain theories and treatment models about MI have been well developed, but too often overlook root issues of religious faith. The authors propose a new model for understanding moral injury and suggest ways to mitigate its virtually inevitable occurrence in pre-combat training, and ways to resolve MI post-trauma with proven spiritual resources. People outside the military, too, among whom the incidence of MI also is a growing threat, will benefit from this analysis. The stories of the injured--their shaping and their telling--are the key, and there are many illumining stories of moral injury and recovery. Those who suffer MI, their families, and caregivers, including counselors, pastors, and faith communities, will find hope-giving first steps toward the healing of MI in this book.

Moral Injury is now recognized as a growing major problem for military men and women. Operant conditioning can overwhelm moral convictions and yet the question of whether “to shoot or not to shoot” often will never have a settled answer. Certain theories and treatment models about MI have been well developed, but too often overlook root issues of religious faith. The authors propose a new model for understanding moral injury and suggest ways to mitigate its virtually inevitable occurrence in pre-combat training, and ways to resolve MI post-trauma with proven spiritual resources. People outside the military, too, among whom the incidence of MI also is a growing threat, will benefit from this analysis. The stories of the injured—their shaping and their telling—are the key, and there are many illumining stories of moral injury and recovery. Those who suffer MI, their families, and caregivers, including counselors, pastors, and faith communities, will find hope-giving first steps toward the healing of MI in this book.

Moral injury has developed in earnest since 2009 within psychology and military studies, especially through work with veterans of the U.S. military’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. A major part of this work is the attempt to identify means of healing, recovery, and repair for those morally injured by their experiences in combat (or similar situations). What this volume does is to provide insight into the identification of moral injury, the development of the notion, attempts to work with those affected, emerging ideas about moral injury, portraits of moral injury in the past and present, and, especially, what creative engagement with moral injury might look like from a variety of perspectives. As such, it will be an important resource for Christian ministers, chaplains, health care workers, and other providers and caregivers who serve afflicted communities.

The purpose of this book is to provide vital information regarding loss and trauma to practicing counselors and therapists. Trauma and loss are pervasive presenting problems, many counselors and therapists possess scant understanding of trauma and loss, and little, if any, attention is paid to trauma or to loss in the graduate training of clinical psychology and counseling psychology students. The book is organized into four sections which cover: an overview of loss and trauma, key conceptual frameworks for understanding loss and trauma, review of several types of events producing trauma and loss, and interventions addressing loss and trauma. A key contribution of the book is the focus on losses caused by death and losses due to other reasons. The contributions to practice include the overview of what is known about trauma and about loss; examination of several frameworks for organizing both understanding of and working with traumatized and bereaved clients; rich descriptive cases of individuals coping with various traumatic events and the losses embedded in the trauma; and presentation of various interventions, including changes that can be made in the graduate education of practitioners.

This book expands the conversation on moral injury to include a more formal role for society in it. The author utilizes an interdisciplinary practical theology combining liberation theologies and cultural studies to interrogate how dominate ideologies can complicate moral injury reintegration among veterans.

This book expands on moral injury discourse and defines a new approach to conceptualizing and addressing moral injuries by articulating a new term—moral orienting systems—that better describes the process of morally significant traumas.