Moral Injury Podcast: Searching For Wholeness Amidst Traumatic Grief

Dear Friends,

In the last journal entry we offered a paper by Carrie Doehring, discussing the necessity for body- centered spiritual practices when searching for wholeness amidst traumatic grief.  Now, for this journal entry—a podcast—she is joined in conversation by Alan Johnson, Bill Forbes, Pedro Silva, Don Blomberg and Chuck Knapp.  Together they discuss the topic of moral injury and moral stress, and how people search for meaning amidst suffering.

It was interesting to learn at the recent INMI Conference that the term moral stress was originally coined by nurses.  It was not uncommon for them to experience concern that they may have, at times, caused harm or compromised care in regard to their patients.  In Carrie’s presentation at the Conference, she said that “people with strong core values of responsibility and concern for others are more susceptible to moral stress.” So, not unlike nurses, it is fair to say that we as mental health clinicians will feel distress at times that we may cause harm to those we are wanting to care for and support.

While listening to the podcast, this is what my mind continued to come back to. I found myself thinking of times with clients where I lacked patience or skillful means, and how that felt to me. Feelings of guilt or shame for what I did or didn’t say or do can be, as Carrie would suggest, “life-giving if people don’t isolate themselves and are able to reach out to others in order to share responsibility and realistically assess harm.” How fortunate we are at Windhorse to cultivate and encourage relationships of mutual recovery where this can happen.

Not unlike working with traumatic grief, body-centered spiritual practices can be very helpful too, in bringing understanding and compassion to ourselves as clinicians and as a community when we make mistakes in our work with each other – staff and clients.  So, in the spirit of working together, forgiveness, learning and growing, I would like to present the next addition to our journal.

I hope you enjoy!

Tim Anspach