Moral Injury as an Identity Wound

Type:
  Virtual Training
Duration:
1 hour, 2 minutes
CE credits:
Not currently offered
Presented by:
DMH + UCLA Prevention Center of Excellence
Sponsored by:
Veteran Family Wellbeing Center
Featuring:
William P. Nash, MD
Relevant categories:
Moral Injury/Moral Distress Trauma Informed Interventions
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Overview

In this video, Dr. Bill Nash reviews the history of two competing, overarching conceptions of psychological trauma – one conceiving of trauma as the principal result of maladaptive coping with stress, the other as a literal and enduring wound to a person’s identity or social self. The evidence supporting each conception of trauma is also considered, along with evidence that observed symptoms of moral injury in veteran and healthcare populations may best be understood as resulting from literal damage to one’s identity. Finally, Dr. Nash offers a model for understanding, treating, and preventing moral injury as an identity wound based on psychoanalytic self psychology.

  Keywords: professional, trauma, veterans
  Public link for sharing: https://learn.wellbeing4la.org/detail?id=17122&k=1618330089  
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Learning objectives

  • Define moral injury as damage to a relationship of trust, either with external moral agents or with oneself
  • Explain how serious breaches of trust result in two cardinal symptoms of moral injury symptoms, painful emotions and social isolation
  • Trace conceptions of psychological trauma as a literal wound to one’s social self to early PTSD theorists such as Judith Herman, Ronnie Janoff-Bulman, and Jonathan Shay
  • List the three forms of necessary, sustaining emotional attachments described by Heinz Kohut that are vulnerable to being severed by moral injury

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