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Moral Injury and Definitional Clarity: Betrayal, Spirituality and the Role of Chaplains

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Abstract

This article explores the developing definition of moral injury within the current key literature. Building on the previous literature regarding ‘Moral Injury, Spiritual Care and the role of Chaplains’ (Carey et al. in JORH 55(4):1218–1245, 2016b. doi:10.1007/s10943-016-0231-x), this article notes the complexity that has developed due to definitional variations regarding moral injury—particularly with respect to the concepts of ‘betrayal’ and ‘spirituality’. Given the increasing recognition of moral injury and noting the relevance and importance of utilizing a bio-psycho-social-spiritual model, this article argues that betrayal and spirituality should be core components for understanding, defining and addressing moral injury. It also supports the role of chaplains being involved in the holistic care and rehabilitation of those affected by moral injury.

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Notes

  1. Pejorative: adjective—expressing content or disproval of someone or something in a way that is contemptuous, disparaging, derogatory, insulting, disapproving, defamatory, slanderous and libellous.

  2. Soul: noun—can be defined as a person’s moral, emotional or spiritual nature or sense of identity that is an immaterial part of a human being and often regarded as immortal or eternal.

  3. Consensus definition of spirituality (Puchalski et al. 2009): this definition of spirituality has served as a basis for new and modified definitions of spirituality that have subsequently added words such as connected ‘with God’ (e.g., ADF-RACS 2016) or ‘transcendence’ (e.g., Hall et al, 2016, p. 4).

  4. ‘Camel through the eye of a needle’ is a proverb noted within Judaism, Christianity and subsequently Islam expressing the unlikeliness of an occurrence ever happening.

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Acknowledgements

Appreciation is acknowledged to Dr. Bruce Rumbold (Palliative Care Unit, La Trobe University, Melbourne), Associate Professor Jeffrey Cohen (Australian Catholic University), Chaplain (GPCAPT) Mark Willis (JHC, Canberra), Dr. Neil Pembroke and Dr. David Pittman (University of Queensland) for their support of this research.

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Correspondence to Timothy J. Hodgson or Lindsay B. Carey.

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The first author is a veteran military chaplain. The second author has served as chaplain within health, welfare, industrial and military contexts and regularly contributes to a wide range of pastoral care research internationally and is ranked by Scopus (May 2017) as 4th internationally with regard to chaplaincy research publications.

Ethical Endorsement

This paper is part of developing research into Moral Injury being conducted with the support of the University of Queensland Human Research Ethics Committee (Brisbane Australia), the Palliative Care Unit, La Trobe University (Melbourne, Australia) and the Australian Defence Force Human Research Ethics Committee (Canberra, Australia) in compliance with the (Australian) National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (2015), Canberra: National Health and Medical Research Council.

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Hodgson, T.J., Carey, L.B. Moral Injury and Definitional Clarity: Betrayal, Spirituality and the Role of Chaplains. J Relig Health 56, 1212–1228 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-017-0407-z

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