Purpose of Review We report critically on current debates in the field, identify significant theo... more Purpose of Review We report critically on current debates in the field, identify significant theoretical trends, highlight our own experiences, and describe our own approaches. We provide substantive recommendations for clinicians and others addressing military moral injury. Recent Findings The trauma theories of Judith Herman and Jennifer Gómez, as well as the theory of moral exploitation of Michael Robillard and Bradley Strawser, and the theory of complicity and moral accountability of Gregory Mellema, provide context for understanding, and guidance for addressing military, moral injury. Three examples of communal Review interventions illustrate how these theories can contribute to morally engaged and contextually informed care. Summary Military moral injury cannot be adequately addressed in the clinical context alone using individualized treatment approaches. Effective clinicians must be morally engaged, collaborate across disciplines, and be structurally and culturally competent.
The sharp and unforgiving suffering of the morally injured veteran cannot be fully understood, mu... more The sharp and unforgiving suffering of the morally injured veteran cannot be fully understood, much less effectively addressed, without a comprehensive investigation of moral injury’s underlying causes in American culture and society. And Then Your Soul is Gone exposes the threads of violence that tie together the naturalized dynamics of U.S. ways of war and militarization with collective practices of national distraction and self-deception. It shows how these same threads of violence are also tightly woven and sacralized in the tapestry of U.S. national identity, tragically concealing moral injury from greater consciousness, and sourcing its toxic growth in the very lives of those the nation claims it most highly esteems, our military service members and veterans. Drawing on Claudia Card’s philosophical framework, moral injury here is characterized as an atrocity, “a foreseeable intolerable harm caused by culpable wrongdoing.” These atrocities are shown to be flash-points revealing...
The Moral Injury Group (MIG) at the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz (Philadelphia) VA Medical Center... more The Moral Injury Group (MIG) at the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz (Philadelphia) VA Medical Center (CMCVAMC) is an example of collaborative care between chaplains and psychologists that engages religious, academic, and not-for-profit communities, as well as the media and other organizations external to the healthcare context. The intervention is primarily informed by a unique conceptualization: the moral injury (MI) of individual veterans is rooted in the unfair distribution of appropriate moral pain and best addressed through communal intervention that facilitates broader moral engagement and responsibility. MI is a public health issue that arises from the unfair distribution of appropriate moral pain and is sourced by the sedimentary layers of structural violence in US institutions related to war, and US war-culture. Preventing veteran suicide and promoting public health requires a larger social analysis and more broad-based, collective and collaborative understanding of, and response to, US war-culture, extending responsibility for MI care and prevention beyond individual veterans in health care institutions and clinical settings to US society.
The International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, 2014
12.00 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable... more 12.00 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} In this paper we examine the relationship between mindfulness, memoir, and critical pedagogy. We propose that memoir links critical pedagogy and contemplative practice, furthering the goals of both. This proposal is rooted in an analysis of three years’ worth of memoirs prepared by students in a Peace and...
What would we say about the losses associated with war if we did not describe them as sacrifices?... more What would we say about the losses associated with war if we did not describe them as sacrifices? What would we say about Jesus’ life and death if we did not associate the gospel narratives with a cosmic framework of sacrificial self-giving? The “the necessity of sacrifice” operates as an electrical exchange between the institutionalization of “war-culture” in the United States and the understandings and practices of popular Christianity. This leads to an important and difficult question: is there any way to rehabilitate understandings of sacrifice for Christianity without at the same time aiding and abetting war?
Focusing on viewer response to Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, this article interroga... more Focusing on viewer response to Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, this article interrogates the process of viewers' absorption of the film's dominant atonement images, penal substitution, christus victor and sacrifice in order to more deeply understand just how these images operate in popular culture, how they influence values, practices and beliefs, and to question the social impact of the discourse of violence and redemptive dynamics imbedded in the religious images themselves. This article is available in Journal of Religion & Film: https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol9/iss1/10 Called a "Rorschach test," what is most revelatory about The Passion of the Christ is the fascinating array of contradictory responses its dissemination has induced in the American religious/social/political landscape. Popular and professional response to the film has been voluminous and wildly conflictual. Digging beneath one's first impression of a deeply polarized re...
Purpose of Review We report critically on current debates in the field, identify significant theo... more Purpose of Review We report critically on current debates in the field, identify significant theoretical trends, highlight our own experiences, and describe our own approaches. We provide substantive recommendations for clinicians and others addressing military moral injury. Recent Findings The trauma theories of Judith Herman and Jennifer Gómez, as well as the theory of moral exploitation of Michael Robillard and Bradley Strawser, and the theory of complicity and moral accountability of Gregory Mellema, provide context for understanding, and guidance for addressing military, moral injury. Three examples of communal Review interventions illustrate how these theories can contribute to morally engaged and contextually informed care. Summary Military moral injury cannot be adequately addressed in the clinical context alone using individualized treatment approaches. Effective clinicians must be morally engaged, collaborate across disciplines, and be structurally and culturally competent.
The sharp and unforgiving suffering of the morally injured veteran cannot be fully understood, mu... more The sharp and unforgiving suffering of the morally injured veteran cannot be fully understood, much less effectively addressed, without a comprehensive investigation of moral injury’s underlying causes in American culture and society. And Then Your Soul is Gone exposes the threads of violence that tie together the naturalized dynamics of U.S. ways of war and militarization with collective practices of national distraction and self-deception. It shows how these same threads of violence are also tightly woven and sacralized in the tapestry of U.S. national identity, tragically concealing moral injury from greater consciousness, and sourcing its toxic growth in the very lives of those the nation claims it most highly esteems, our military service members and veterans. Drawing on Claudia Card’s philosophical framework, moral injury here is characterized as an atrocity, “a foreseeable intolerable harm caused by culpable wrongdoing.” These atrocities are shown to be flash-points revealing...
The Moral Injury Group (MIG) at the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz (Philadelphia) VA Medical Center... more The Moral Injury Group (MIG) at the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz (Philadelphia) VA Medical Center (CMCVAMC) is an example of collaborative care between chaplains and psychologists that engages religious, academic, and not-for-profit communities, as well as the media and other organizations external to the healthcare context. The intervention is primarily informed by a unique conceptualization: the moral injury (MI) of individual veterans is rooted in the unfair distribution of appropriate moral pain and best addressed through communal intervention that facilitates broader moral engagement and responsibility. MI is a public health issue that arises from the unfair distribution of appropriate moral pain and is sourced by the sedimentary layers of structural violence in US institutions related to war, and US war-culture. Preventing veteran suicide and promoting public health requires a larger social analysis and more broad-based, collective and collaborative understanding of, and response to, US war-culture, extending responsibility for MI care and prevention beyond individual veterans in health care institutions and clinical settings to US society.
The International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, 2014
12.00 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable... more 12.00 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} In this paper we examine the relationship between mindfulness, memoir, and critical pedagogy. We propose that memoir links critical pedagogy and contemplative practice, furthering the goals of both. This proposal is rooted in an analysis of three years’ worth of memoirs prepared by students in a Peace and...
What would we say about the losses associated with war if we did not describe them as sacrifices?... more What would we say about the losses associated with war if we did not describe them as sacrifices? What would we say about Jesus’ life and death if we did not associate the gospel narratives with a cosmic framework of sacrificial self-giving? The “the necessity of sacrifice” operates as an electrical exchange between the institutionalization of “war-culture” in the United States and the understandings and practices of popular Christianity. This leads to an important and difficult question: is there any way to rehabilitate understandings of sacrifice for Christianity without at the same time aiding and abetting war?
Focusing on viewer response to Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, this article interroga... more Focusing on viewer response to Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, this article interrogates the process of viewers' absorption of the film's dominant atonement images, penal substitution, christus victor and sacrifice in order to more deeply understand just how these images operate in popular culture, how they influence values, practices and beliefs, and to question the social impact of the discourse of violence and redemptive dynamics imbedded in the religious images themselves. This article is available in Journal of Religion & Film: https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol9/iss1/10 Called a "Rorschach test," what is most revelatory about The Passion of the Christ is the fascinating array of contradictory responses its dissemination has induced in the American religious/social/political landscape. Popular and professional response to the film has been voluminous and wildly conflictual. Digging beneath one's first impression of a deeply polarized re...
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