Healing Veteran Moral Injury: Using Metaphor and Story to Foster Hope and Connection [Paperback]

Moral injury always occurs in a relational context. As such, it cannot be healed in a vacuum; rather, the presence of safe, supportive, andimportantlybenevolent relationships where acceptance, forgiveness, and repair can occur are essential. Marrying their vast knowledge of moral injury and the use of metaphors in psychotherapy, the authors have created a unique text to illuminate the sometimes long and windy road to recovery from potentially morally injurious events. Pernicano and Haynes offer mental health clinicians, Veterans, family members, and individuals touched by MI a roadmap for understanding the multi-layered impact of potentially morally injurious events. They do so by utilizing the amazing power of metaphora tool with a long history in psychotherapy and increasingly recognized as invaluable in working with trauma. In helping individuals re-story their experiences, metaphors serve as a conduit of human connection and a vehicle of change. This book is as enlightening as it is practical, and a must-read for anyone whose life has been impacted by moral injury.

Valentina Stoycheva,?PhD, co-author of?The Unconscious: Theory, Research, and Clinical Implications,?co-chair, Moral Injury Special Interest Group, International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies

Years ago, I volunteered as a hospital chaplain near Atlanta, Georgia. One day I visited a World War II veteran facing a dire physical diagnosis. He was near death, but the elderly man asked a profoundly moral question. He pleaded Will God forgive me for what I did during the war? He revealed a secret that had tormented him for decades. The pain on his face was evident as his stoic features softened. He said he had killed a surrendering German sailor. He had obeyed orders but now carried a moral injury from what he had done as a frightened young soldier.I was an untrained, recent seminary graduate and new pastor. I wlƒ)