Healing Veteran Moral Injury Using Metaphor and Story to Foster Hope and Connection

Healing Veteran Moral Injury highlights the importance of story and metaphor in the change process and in trauma-related work.

Grounded in evidence-based practice and replete with clear, down-to-earth examples that foster empathy and understanding, Healing Veteran Moral Injury illustrates the ways in which building a sense of community can help restore trust and meaning. Each chapter illustrates the power of stories and metaphors and helps veterans identify strategies for healing moral injury and for posttraumatic growth. Clinicians and veterans will come away from this book with tools for building connection, for accepting what they cannot change, and for developing a more accurate perception of responsibility.

Healing Veteran Moral Injury is intended both for mental health professionals and for veterans themselves as a tool for breaking the silence, for pointing other veterans toward hope and healing, and for telling stories of moral pain with fortitude and courage.

CONTENTS

1. Moral Pain and Moral Injury

2. PTSD and Moral Injury: Overlapping Symptoms and Different Meanings

3. Meaning Making Through Story and Metaphor

4. Dealing with the Spiritual in Moral Injury

5. Forgiving Self and Others

6. Models of Healing for Moral Injury

7. Beginning the Journey of Acceptance and Forgiveness

8. Processing the Impact of Moral Injury

9. Re-thinking Guilt, Blame, and Responsibility

10. Practising Confession and Forgiveness

11. The Healing of Sharing Your Story

12. Stories and Metaphors for Restoring Wholeness

13. Post-traumatic Growth and Continuing the Journey

14. Conclusion with AFT Program Data