Addressing Religious and Spiritual Diversity in Moral Injury Care: Five Perspectives

Jeffrey M. Pyne, Joseph Currier, Kent D. Hinkson, Timothy J. Usset, Lynn A. Abeita, Paul Dordal, Taimur Kouser, Rania Awaad, Marcela C. Weber, Brandon J. Griffin

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

Purpose of Review: Moral injury is increasingly recognized as a problem across various populations. Moral injury symptoms can occur when an individual’s action, lack of action, or witness of an event violates their moral beliefs, and include dysphoric emotions such as guilt, shame, and disgust; loss of meaning and purpose; withdrawal from valued relationships and groups; and religious/spiritual struggle (e.g., feeling abandoned or punished by the divine, loss of faith in a previously held belief system). Spiritually oriented moral injury interventions are sometimes delivered by mental health clinicians, chaplains, other religious/spiritual leaders, and peers. However, there is a lack of research on moral injury interventions among diverse religious/spiritual populations. Recent Findings: To start bridging this gap, we present anonymized moral injury case studies from the perspectives of five spiritual traditions (listed alphabetically): Agnosticism, Islam, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS, also known as Mormonism), Native American spiritual ways, and Roman Catholicism. These case studies describe the morally injurious event(s), ensuing mental health problems and religious/spiritual struggles, how these struggles are understood within the specific religious/spiritual tradition, and interventions and resources used to address moral injury. Summary: We discuss resources for religious/spiritual competency training, religiously/spiritually oriented psychotherapies for moral injury, and approaches to care involving collaboration between mental health and religious/spiritual community resources.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)446-462
Number of pages17
JournalCurrent Treatment Options in Psychiatry
Volume10
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, This is a U.S. Government work and not under copyright protection in the US; foreign copyright protection may apply.

Keywords

  • Moral injury
  • Psychology of religion
  • Religious beliefs
  • Spirituality
  • Spiritually integrated care

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