Moral Injury Resources

The Shay Center resources on moral injury include videos and materials for those new to the subject, work in a variety of fields, research on various populations, and materials for professional practitioners. We will continue to update this site as we create or discover relevant and recent information for diverse audiences, including care providers, clinicians, chaplains, religious leaders, veterans, researchers, people experiencing moral injury, and policy makers.

In addition to this listing of resources by category, our fully-searchable bibliography is at Zotero.org, which has additional and more comprehensive citations. If you want to suggest a new resource for us to consider adding to our listings, contact us at ShayCenterInfo@voa.org.

Resources by Category/Field

• General Resources (below)
• Arts & Culture
• Chaplains, Spiritual Care, Religious Leaders
• COVID-19
• Healthcare
• Social Work & Community Advocates
• Veterans

Labyrinth: Shay Center Moral Injury Newsletter Links

GENERAL RESOURCES

Videos by VOA

• Introducing The Shay Moral Injury Center at Volunteers of America
• Moral Injury: A Working Definition
• Understanding Moral Injury: What Can We Do
• Dr. William Nash Discusses Moral Injury Beyond the Military Context
• Moral Injury – The War Inside (VOA)

Webinars

• Moral Resilience for Criminal Justice Workers During COVID-19
• Moral Resilience for Spiritual Leaders During COVID-19
• Moral Resilience in Pastoral Care Workers During COVID-19
• Moral Resilience for Social Service Workers During COVID-19
• Moral Resilience for Medical Workers During COVID-19 (accompanying information handout)
• Moral Resilience for Nurses During COVID-19

Links to Other Programs

Books

• Brock, Rita Nakashima and Lettini, Gabriella (2012). Soul Repair: Recovering from Moral Injury After War. Boston: Beacon Press.
• Boulanger, Ghislaine (2007). Wounded by Reality: Understanding and Treating Adult-Onset Trauma. Mahwah, NJ: Analytic Press.
• Courtois, Christine and Ford, Julian D. (2013). Treatment of Complex Trauma: A Sequenced, Relationship-Based Approach. New York: Guilford.
• Doerries, Bryan (2015). All That You’ve Seen Here is God: New Versions of Four Greek Tragedies - Sophocles' Ajax, Philoctetes, Women of Trachis; Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound. New York: Random House.
• Doerries, Bryan (2015). The Theater of War: What Ancient Greek Tragedies Can Teach Us Today. New York: Knopf.
• Epstein, Mark (2013). The Trauma of Everyday Life. New York: Penguin.
• Frankl, Viktor E. (1959/2006). Man’s Search for Meaning. Boston: Beacon Press.
• Herman, Judith (1997). Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence – From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror. New York: Basic Books.
• Janoff-Bulman, Ronnie (1992). Shattered Assumptions: Towards a New Psychology of Trauma. New York: Free Press.
• Kelle, Brad (2020). The Bible and Moral Injury: Reading Scripture Alongside War’s Unseen Wounds. Nashville: Abingdon Press.
• Koch, Tom (2017). Ethics in Everyday Places: Mapping Moral Stress, Distress, and Injury. Redlands: MIT Press.
• Litz, Brett T.; Lebowitz, Leslie; Gray, Matt J.; and Nash, William P. (2015). Adaptive Disclosure: A New Treatment for Military Trauma, Loss, and Moral Injury. New York: Guilford.
• Lynd, Alice and Lynd, Staughton (2017). Moral Injury and Nonviolent Resistance: Breaking the Cycle of Violence in the Military and Behind Bars. Oakland: PM Press.
• Meagher, Robert E.; Pryer, Douglas A.; Nash, William P.; and Acampora, Christa Davis (Eds.) (2018). War and Moral Injury: A Reader. Eugene: Cascade Books.
• Miller, Ronald B. (2004). Facing Human Suffering: Psychology and Psychotherapy as Moral Engagement. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
• Moon, Zachary (2019). Warriors Between Worlds: Moral Injury and Identities in Crisis. Lanham: Lexington Books.
• Papadopoulos, Renos K. (2020). Moral Injury and Beyond: Understanding Human Anguish and Healing Traumatic Wounds. Abingdon: Routledge.
• Schauer, M.; Neuner, F.; and Elbert, T. (2011). Narrative Exposure Therapy: A Short-Term Treatment for Traumatic Stress Disorders. Cambridge, MA: Hogrefe.
• Shay, Jonathan (1995). Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and The Undoing of Character. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Shay, Jonathan (2002). Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and The Trials of Homecoming. New York: Scribner.
• Sherman, Nancy (2015). Afterwar: Healing the Moral Wounds of Our Soldiers. New York: Oxford University Press
• Stolorow, Robert (2007). Trauma and Human Existence: Autobiographical, Psychoanalytic, and Philosophical Reflections. New York: Routledge.
• Wiinikka-Lydon, Joseph (2020). Moral Injury and the Promise of Virtue. Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Van Der Kolk, Bessel (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. NY: Viking.
• Volunteers of America (2018). The Momentum of Hope: Personal Stories of Moral Injury.

Journal Articles

• Atuel, Hazel R.; Chestnut, Ryan; Richardson, Cameron; Perkins, Daniel F.; and Castro, Carl A. (2020). Exploring Moral Injury: Theory, Measurement, and Applications. Military Behavioral Health, 8(3), 248-255. DOI: 10.1080/21635781.2020.1753604.
• Jones, Edgar (2020). Moral Injury in a Context of Trauma. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 216, 127-128. DOI: 10.1192/bjp.2020.46.
• Cullen, John G. (2020). Moral Recovery and Ethical Leadership. Journal of Business Ethics, Oct 2020,1-13. DOI:10.1007/s10551-020-04658-3.
• Griffin Brandon J.; Purcell, Natalie; Burkman, Kristine; Litz, Brett .; Bryan, Craig J.; Schmitz, Martha; Villierme, Claudia; Walsh, Jessica; Maguen, Shira (2019). Moral Injury: An Integrative Review. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 32(3), 350-362. DOI: 10.1002/jts.22362.
• Molendijk, Tine (2018). Toward an interdisciplinary conceptualization of moral injury: From unequivocal guilt and anger to moral conflict and disorientation. New Ideas in Psychology, 51, 1-8. DOI: 10.1016/j.newideapsych.2018.04.006.
• Caplan, Paula J. (2018). Moral Anguish is not a Mental Illness. Volunteers of America.
• Farnsworth, Jacob K.; Drescher, Kent D. ; Evans, Wyatt; and Walser, Robyn D. (2017). A Functional Approach to Understanding and Treating Military-Related Moral Injury. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science. DOI: 10.1016/j.jcbs.2017.07.003.
• Nieuwsma, Jason A.; Walser, Robyn D.; Farnsworth, Jacob K.; Drescher, Kent D.; Meador, Keith G.; and Nash, William P. (2015). Possibilities within Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Approaching Moral Injury. Current Psychiatry Reviews, 11, 193-206.
• Harris, Jeanette; Park, Crystal; Currier, Joseph; Usset, Timothy; and Voecks, Cory (2015). Moral Injury and Psycho-Spiritual Development: Considering the Developmental Context. Spirituality in Clinical Practice, 2(4), 256-266. DOI: 10.1037/scp0000045.
• Shay, Jonathan (2014). Moral Injury. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 31(2), 182-191. DOI: 10.1037/a0036090.
• Drescher, Kent D.; Nieuwsma, Jason A.; and Swales, Pamela J. (2013). Morality and Moral Injury: Insights from Theology and Health Science.
• Kinghorn, Warren (2012). Combat Trauma and Moral Fragmentation: A Theological Account of Moral Injury. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, 32(2), 57-74. DOI: 10.1353/sce.2012.0041.
• Robjant, Katy and Fazel, Mina (2010). The Emerging Evidence for Narrative Exposure Therapy: A Review. Clinical Psychology Review, 30, 1030-1039.
• Boulanger, Ghislaine (2008). Witness to Reality: Working Psychodynamically With Survivors of Terror. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 18, 638-657.DOI: 10.1080/10481880802297673.
• Price, June T.; Steuwig, Jeff; and Mashek, Debra (2007). Moral Emotions and Moral Behavior. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 345-272.DOI: 10.1146/annurev.psych.56.091103.070145.