Recontextualising moral injury among military veterans

An integrative theoretical review

Datos Bibliográficos

ID12397286
AutoresJake Hollis (0000-0001-9331-994X, Department of Psychological Interventions University of Surrey Guildford UK, autor de correspondencia), Paul Hanna (0000-0003-0461-1485, Department of Psychological Interventions University of Surrey Guildford UK), Gemma Perman (0000-0001-8483-9978, Department of Psychological Interventions University of Surrey Guildford UK)
Año2022
Volumen33
Número1
Páginas85-101
Fecha de publicación2022-07-26
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Community & Applied Social Psychology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1052-9284 • E-ISSN: 1099-1298
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/casp.2643
OpenAlexW4288038705
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas49

Moral injury was originally conceived as a socially‐inflicted wound of betrayal experienced by military veterans (Shay, 1994). However, moral injury has since been redefined by psychological researchers as an individualised, predominantly perpetration‐driven, and psychopathological phenomenon (e.g., Currier et al., 2015; Jinkerson, 2016). However, social scientific researchers (e.g., Hodgson & Carey, 2017; Molendijk, 2019; Wiinikka‐Lydon, 2017) have contested mainstream psychology's medicalisation and decontextualisation of moral injury. This theoretical review integrates insights from across these discourses, and brings them into dialogue with ideas from moral psychology, evolutionary science, and community psychology. The aim of this cross‐disciplinary review is to promote a more holistic understanding of moral injury that does justice to its individual and social dimensions. Drawing on these different theoretical strands, this paper proposes that moral injury can be best understood as a psychological wound to basic human needs for social belonging and cohesion. The implications of this integrative understanding of moral injury for applied psychologists and other societal actors are explored. While the relevance of moral injury to civilian populations such as health and social care professionals is clear (e.g., Dombo et al., 2013; French et al., 2021), this paper focuses on military veterans, whose experiences originally prompted the coinage of the term. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement

Betrayal · Criminology · Discipline · Epistemology · Mainstream · Moral authority · Moral disengagement · Moral injury · Moral psychology · Moral reasoning · Poison control · Political science · Social cognitive theory of morality · Social science · Sociology · Law · Medicine · Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research · Psychology · Social Psychology · Suicide and Self-Harm Studies · Torture, Ethics, and Law