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Truth and repair: Engaging Moral Injury through the work of Judith Herman

Submitted to Program Units
1: Moral Injury and Recovery in Religion, Society, and Culture Unit

Nigel Hatton, University of California, Merced, Presiding

Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)

This session will explore the relationship between trauma, moral injury and meaning-making through engagement with the work of psychiatrist Judith Herman.  The papers range from a theoretical examination of these relationships in a theological sense, an exploration of visions of commual repair in the aftermath of moral injury, and an exploration of the challenges to conceptualizations of harm, punishment and justice offered through Herman's work for those imprisoned and facing execution in the US criminal justice system.  

Papers

  • Preston Hill, Richmont Graduate University

    The Heart Keeps the Score: Judith Herman and the Moral Context of Trauma Theology

    Abstract

    While trauma studies are gaining popularity, increased public awareness trades on reductive summaries that elide the moral context of trauma in favor of stress-based models acceptable to modern medicine. This creates unique challenges for integrating trauma studies into morally saturated disciplines like theology, especially when those disciplines foreground existential insights from trauma as with the emerging sub-discipline of “trauma theology.” In this paper, I draw from moral injury research to resource what I call “morally expansive” approaches to trauma theology. Using Bessel van der Kolk’s work as a foil, I suggest that Judith Herman’s recent addition of a fourth stage to her famous threefold stages of trauma recovery signals the need for recovering moral contexts in interdisciplinary trauma research. In van der Kolk’s terms, I conclude that while the body may be the “scoreboard” of trauma, it is the moral center (the heart”) of a person that keeps that score.

  • Zachary Moon, Chicago Theological Seminary

    Community-based Reparative Action as Moral Injury Recovery

    Abstract

    This paper will contend with Judith Herman’s recent publication, Truth and Repair (2023) bridging Herman’s emphasis on trauma and justice with best practices of recovery in the aftermath of moral injury. Because moral injury is social-relational in nature, recovery must integrate pro-social reparative action rooted in an engaged, trustworthy and compassionate community. This paper will highlight three community-based reparative action approaches – community service, activism, and Restorative Justice practices. These approaches are effective: (1) by functioning as an engaged, trustworthy, and compassionate community; and (2) by exercising moral responsibility as a collective matter not an individual pathology. The Western clinical-medical paradigm is not capable of fully addressing the needs of the moral injured because it is not designed to respond to the demands created by moral transgressions (i.e. injustices). Without community-based reparative action a person can develop a learned helplessness resulting in worsening social-relational isolation, destructive behaviors, depression, and suicidality.

  • Graham B. Reside,

    Moral Injury on Death Row

    Abstract

    This paper addresses the issue of moral injury within the American penal system, by exploring its realities in the context of Death Row. Those imprisoned have profound experiences of moral injury, requiring exploration.  It describes the key elements of moral injury in terms of its symptomology and etiology, paying particular attention to the devastation of moral identity through the experience of catastrophic violence. It delineates the ways penal practice exacerbates rather than redresses moral injury, and considers the consequences of this.   It then turns its attention to the voices of the victims of moral injury within our penal system, and to the theorists and practitioners of repair, especially Judith Herman, in order to delineate healing modalities for both practice and policy.  Key informants include insiders on death row, attorneys, judges and other participants in the system, as well as military and Veterans Administration Chaplains, who work with morally wounded warriors.

Audiovisual Requirements

Resources

LCD Projector and Screen
Podium microphone

Full Papers Available

No
Program Unit Options

Session Length

90 Minutes

Schedule Preference

Sunday, 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Schedule Info

Sunday, 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM

Tags

trauma theology
Judith Herman
Bessel van der Kolk
PTSD
DSM

Session Identifier

A24-321