Moral Injury Following Traumatic Events: Working with Clients Who Have Violated Their Conscience – Jennifer Sweeton

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You may not be familiar with moral injury – but you need to be.

Moral injury describes a cluster of symptoms — similar to those associated with PTSD — that result when a person violates their closely held values and beliefs. It can occur when people face traumatic situations where high-stakes decisions must be made.

And today, millions of healthcare workers have been on the frontline of a deadly pandemic. Many have had to make difficult decisions that contradict deeply held beliefs about who gets care and how people should die. It can leave them feeling guilty, unforgivable, depressed and suicidal…and in need of help.

The potential you’ll see morally injured clients in your practice is greater than ever before – are you prepared?

This 2-hour seminar training will give you the clinical guidance and tools you need to:

• Understand moral injury, why it occurs and who it impacts
• Identify moral injury in clients
• More effectively help morally injured clients overcome avoidance and guilt
• Get up to speed on the latest research on treatment

Don’t be caught off-guard when morally injured clients come to you for help!

Purchase today!

1. Evaluate the clinical implications of differences between moral injury and PTSD.
2. Assess for moral injury in clients using the Moral Injury Events Scale.
3. Employ effective clinical strategies to help clients work through guilt originating from traumatic events.
4. Analyze the latest research on the application of PE, EMDR and other psychotherapeutic modalities in treating moral injury.

Moral Injury Defined

• Actions counter to an individual’s moral code
• Guilt and/or shame and/or self-blame
• Failure to act
• Psychological, social, behavioral, and spiritual impacts
• Who experiences moral injury

Why Moral Injury Happens

• Fight, flight, flee survival response
• Loss of context can change behavior (Abu Ghraib and torture)
• Acts of comission or omission in war
• The necessity of making fast, life-ordeath decisions in medical or other contexts (such as COVID)

How to Identify Moral Injury

• Moral Injury Events Scale (Nash et al., 2013)
• Moral Injury Questionnaire (Currier et al., 2015)
• Clinical interview
• Overlap with DSM-5™ PTSD symptoms

Addressing Moral Injury in Clinical Practice: Clinical Insights and the Latest Research

• Guilt vs. shame
• Effective strategies for working through guilt
• Prolonged Exposure, EMDR, Cognitive Processing Therapy, Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
• Impact of Killing Treatment Program (Maguen et al., 2017)
• Trauma-Informed Guilt Reduction (Norman et al., 2014)
• Research and treatment limitations and risks