What is Moral Injury?

     Donald Trump, before his election bragged that he wouldn't loose a single follower if he pulled out a gun in Times Square and shot someone. Rodrigo Duterte, president of the Phillipines, repeatedly brags about having murdered several suspected drug dealers, and encourages his people to do the same. Trump and Duterte have a lot of supporters at home and abroad. 
     How do you feel when you hear about such things?

     "The sorrow, grief, and rage you feel is a measure of your humanity and your evolutionary maturity. As your heart breaks open there will be room for the world to heal."       Joanna Macy

      “… moral injury is an essential part of any combat trauma that leads to lifelong psychological injury. Veterans can usually recover from horror, fear, and grief once they return to civilian life, so long as ‘what’s right’ has not also been violated.”
        Jonathan Shay. “Achilles in Vietnam. Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character.” Scribner, NY, 1994.

     "Moral injury is 
     • the damage done to one’s conscience or moral compass when that person perpetrates, witnesses, or fails to prevent acts that transgress their own moral and ethical values or codes of conduct
     • disruption in an individual’s confidence and expectations about one’s own or others’ motivation or capacity to behave in a just and ethical manner
     • the inability to contextualize or justify personal actions or the actions of others and the unsuccessful accommodation of these … experiences into pre-existing moral schemas
     • a deep soul wound that pierces a person’s identity, sense of morality and relationship to society."
       The Moral Injury Project - Syracuse University http://moralinjuryproject.syr.edu/about-moral-injury/

     See also: "Ignoring 'Soft Skills' & Moral Injury": http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2016/03/ignoring-soft-skills-moral-injury.html

Alexia Foundation http://www.alexiafoundation.org/stories/tradition-womens-rights-and-circumcision-in-guinea-bissau-africabr