Moral Injury: Modern Approaches to the Definition of the Concept, Etiology, Diagnosis, and Psychotherapy

Abstract

In this article, the authors reviewed foreign publications on the issue of moral injury, its causes, diagnosis, and psychotherapy. Foreign experts do not consider this phenomenon as a mental pathology. They define it as a syndrome characterized by a sense of shame, guilt, and obsessive thoughts as a consequence of one’s inability to prevent one’s own actions or the actions of other people. The authors made an attempt to compare and contrast the concepts of "post-traumatic stress disorder" and "moral injury". The review also featured psychotherapy of moral injury and methods of psychological first aid to different categories of people, e.g. psychologists, medical workers, and others. Unfortunately, the issue of moral injury still remains largely understudied in domestic science.

Keywords

• post-traumatic stress disorder
• moral injury
• moral damage
• potential risk factors
• psychotherapy of moral trauma