Melissa A Smigelsky
Biographic Data
| ID | 4215020 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Melissa A Smigelsky |
| GIVEN NAMES | Melissa A |
| FAMILY NAME | Smigelsky |
| SIGNATURE | SMIGELSKY M A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, USA |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9753-4492 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 9 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Moral injury: An applicable framework for addiction treatment and recovery services research
The Real journey: A meaning-oriented approach to moral injury care
This paper describes three theoretical models that focus on meaning-making as a foundation for moral injury conceptualization and care, as manifested in the Reclaiming Experiences and Loss (REAL) moral injury group therapy. The philosophical foundation of the REAL group is Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy, which emphasizes the role of the human spirit and posits that meaning is achieved through living out one’s fundamental responsibility to actualize …
Increasing chaplain support for veterans at high risk for suicide through targeted outreach: A quality improvement initiative
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has prioritized improving the identification of veterans at risk for suicide and ensuring adequate staffing of personnel to assist veterans in need. It is imperative that suicide prevention efforts make use of the full range of available resources, including diverse professionals with distinctive skillsets. Chaplains are engaged in suicide prevention efforts in VA, but the literature lacks examples of chapl…
Enhancing the Utility of the Moral Injury Experience Wheel: Manualized Applications for Diverse Contexts
Introduction to the special issue “Moral injury care: Practices and collaboration”
Collaborative spiritual care for moral injury in the veterans Affairs Healthcare System (VA): Results from a national survey of VA chaplains
The psychospiritual nature of moral injury invites consideration regarding how chaplains understand the construct and provide care. To identify how chaplains in the VA Healthcare System conceptualize moral injury, we conducted an anonymous online survey (N = 361; 45% response rate). Chaplains responded to a battery of items and provided free-text definitions of moral injury that generally aligned with key elements in the existing literature, thou…
Let’s Get “Real”: A Collaborative Group Therapy for Moral Injury
Moral injury is a particular response to profoundly distressing life events that manifests in damage to basic human/relational capacities, such as trust, autonomy, initiative, competence, identity, and intimacy. This paper describes and presents preliminary outcomes of "Reclaiming Experiences And Loss," or "REAL," which is an innovative moral injury group therapy that was developed collaboratively by Veterans Affairs mental health and spiritual c…
Investigating risk for grief severity: Attachment to the deceased and relationship quality
Previous research examining the interrelationship between attachment, relationship quality, and bereavement outcomes suffers from a lack of precision and sophistication in the measurement of the core constructs of interest. The present study adapted an existing measure of attachment and employed a novel instrument of relationship quality to examine specific attachment to and relationship quality with the deceased as contributors to grief symptom …
Prospective Risk Factors for Intense Grief in Family Members of Veterans Who Died of Terminal Illness
Many bereavement researchers focus on predicting and preventing complicated grief, a psychologically crippling, sometimes life-threatening response to loss that persists for lengthy periods, often with serious health consequences. Reviews of studies have identified specific risk factors (e.g., low social support, insecure attachment style) that predict high levels of complicated grief symptomatology. However, studies rarely investigate multiple r…
Performative retelling: Healing community stories of loss through Playback Theatre
Restorative retelling (RR) is an evidence-based procedure for facilitating adaptation following traumatic bereavement. In this paper, we introduce performative retelling (PR), a variation on RR, which fosters healing from personal losses and portrays personal reactions to collective tragedy. We describe our collaboration with an ex-offender reentry program, the Memphis Police Department, and Playback Theatre to use improvisational community theat…
Distinguishing the meaning making processes of survivors of suicide loss: An expansion of the meaning of loss codebook
Suicide loss represents particularly a difficult form of bereavement due to the challenges that volitional death poses to survivors. Understanding these challenges requires recognition of the idiosyncratic processes of meaning reconstruction for this specific group of grievers. The current study investigates such processes in survivors of suicide loss (SOSL) by utilizing the Meaning of Loss Codebook (MLC) to analyze the narratives of eight SOSL. …
Closeness and Conflict With the Deceased: Exploring the Factor Structure of the Quality of Relationships Inventory in a Bereaved Student Sample
With mounting empirical evidence that interpersonal closeness and conflict with the deceased prior to death are significant predictors of grief reactions following loss, accurate empirical examination of these two constructs is of high importance. Despite the utility of the Quality of Relationships Inventory (QRI) in numerous domains of research, the original instrument was not constructed with a predeath, mourner-decedent relationship in mind. T…
Essential connection: Attachment needs in grief therapy
Performing the Peace: Using Playback Theatre in the Strengthening of Police–Community Relations
This study demonstrates that creating contexts of safety and understanding necessary to address relational problems is both feasible and acceptable to law enforcement and ex-offenders
Powerful Poetry: Introducing the Pongo Writing Method
Distinguishing the meaning making processes of survivors of suicide loss: An expansion of the meaning of loss codebook
Suicide loss represents particularly a difficult form of bereavement due to the challenges that volitional death poses to survivors. Understanding these challenges requires recognition of the idiosyncratic processes of meaning reconstruction for this specific group of grievers. The current study investigates such processes in survivors of suicide loss (SOSL) by utilizing the Meaning of Loss Codebook (MLC) to analyze the narratives of eight SOSL. …
Investigating risk for grief severity: Attachment to the deceased and relationship quality
Previous research examining the interrelationship between attachment, relationship quality, and bereavement outcomes suffers from a lack of precision and sophistication in the measurement of the core constructs of interest. The present study adapted an existing measure of attachment and employed a novel instrument of relationship quality to examine specific attachment to and relationship quality with the deceased as contributors to grief symptom …
Performative retelling: Healing community stories of loss through Playback Theatre
Restorative retelling (RR) is an evidence-based procedure for facilitating adaptation following traumatic bereavement. In this paper, we introduce performative retelling (PR), a variation on RR, which fosters healing from personal losses and portrays personal reactions to collective tragedy. We describe our collaboration with an ex-offender reentry program, the Memphis Police Department, and Playback Theatre to use improvisational community theat…
Performing the Peace: Using Playback Theatre in the Strengthening of Police–Community Relations
This study demonstrates that creating contexts of safety and understanding necessary to address relational problems is both feasible and acceptable to law enforcement and ex-offenders
Powerful Poetry: Introducing the Pongo Writing Method
Performing the Peace: Using Playback Theatre in the Strengthening of Police–Community Relations
This study demonstrates that creating contexts of safety and understanding necessary to address relational problems is both feasible and acceptable to law enforcement and ex-offenders
Closeness and Conflict With the Deceased: Exploring the Factor Structure of the Quality of Relationships Inventory in a Bereaved Student Sample
With mounting empirical evidence that interpersonal closeness and conflict with the deceased prior to death are significant predictors of grief reactions following loss, accurate empirical examination of these two constructs is of high importance. Despite the utility of the Quality of Relationships Inventory (QRI) in numerous domains of research, the original instrument was not constructed with a predeath, mourner-decedent relationship in mind. T…
Essential connection: Attachment needs in grief therapy
Performative retelling: Healing community stories of loss through Playback Theatre
Restorative retelling (RR) is an evidence-based procedure for facilitating adaptation following traumatic bereavement. In this paper, we introduce performative retelling (PR), a variation on RR, which fosters healing from personal losses and portrays personal reactions to collective tragedy. We describe our collaboration with an ex-offender reentry program, the Memphis Police Department, and Playback Theatre to use improvisational community theat…
Distinguishing the meaning making processes of survivors of suicide loss: An expansion of the meaning of loss codebook
Suicide loss represents particularly a difficult form of bereavement due to the challenges that volitional death poses to survivors. Understanding these challenges requires recognition of the idiosyncratic processes of meaning reconstruction for this specific group of grievers. The current study investigates such processes in survivors of suicide loss (SOSL) by utilizing the Meaning of Loss Codebook (MLC) to analyze the narratives of eight SOSL. …
Investigating risk for grief severity: Attachment to the deceased and relationship quality
Previous research examining the interrelationship between attachment, relationship quality, and bereavement outcomes suffers from a lack of precision and sophistication in the measurement of the core constructs of interest. The present study adapted an existing measure of attachment and employed a novel instrument of relationship quality to examine specific attachment to and relationship quality with the deceased as contributors to grief symptom …
Prospective Risk Factors for Intense Grief in Family Members of Veterans Who Died of Terminal Illness
Many bereavement researchers focus on predicting and preventing complicated grief, a psychologically crippling, sometimes life-threatening response to loss that persists for lengthy periods, often with serious health consequences. Reviews of studies have identified specific risk factors (e.g., low social support, insecure attachment style) that predict high levels of complicated grief symptomatology. However, studies rarely investigate multiple r…
Introduction to the special issue “Moral injury care: Practices and collaboration”
Collaborative spiritual care for moral injury in the veterans Affairs Healthcare System (VA): Results from a national survey of VA chaplains
The psychospiritual nature of moral injury invites consideration regarding how chaplains understand the construct and provide care. To identify how chaplains in the VA Healthcare System conceptualize moral injury, we conducted an anonymous online survey (N = 361; 45% response rate). Chaplains responded to a battery of items and provided free-text definitions of moral injury that generally aligned with key elements in the existing literature, thou…
Let’s Get “Real”: A Collaborative Group Therapy for Moral Injury
Moral injury is a particular response to profoundly distressing life events that manifests in damage to basic human/relational capacities, such as trust, autonomy, initiative, competence, identity, and intimacy. This paper describes and presents preliminary outcomes of "Reclaiming Experiences And Loss," or "REAL," which is an innovative moral injury group therapy that was developed collaboratively by Veterans Affairs mental health and spiritual c…
Increasing chaplain support for veterans at high risk for suicide through targeted outreach: A quality improvement initiative
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has prioritized improving the identification of veterans at risk for suicide and ensuring adequate staffing of personnel to assist veterans in need. It is imperative that suicide prevention efforts make use of the full range of available resources, including diverse professionals with distinctive skillsets. Chaplains are engaged in suicide prevention efforts in VA, but the literature lacks examples of chapl…
Enhancing the Utility of the Moral Injury Experience Wheel: Manualized Applications for Diverse Contexts
Moral injury: An applicable framework for addiction treatment and recovery services research
The Real journey: A meaning-oriented approach to moral injury care
This paper describes three theoretical models that focus on meaning-making as a foundation for moral injury conceptualization and care, as manifested in the Reclaiming Experiences and Loss (REAL) moral injury group therapy. The philosophical foundation of the REAL group is Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy, which emphasizes the role of the human spirit and posits that meaning is achieved through living out one’s fundamental responsibility to actualize …
Psychology (12 works) · Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health (8 works) · Psychotherapist (7 works) · Social Psychology (7 works) · Medicine (6 works) · Grief (5 works) · Clinical Psychology (4 works) · Migration, Health and Trauma (4 works) · Moral injury (4 works) · Political science (4 works)