Abstract
Self-perceived violation of a socio-moral standard can cause military service members to experience moral injury. Sustaining a moral injury is associated with stress-related problems including physiological, psychological, social, and spiritual distress. By applying a stress-and-coping model, we adduce evidence to suggest that clinical application of self-forgiveness promotes the well-being of active duty personnel and military veterans who bear the burden of self-condemnation secondary to moral conflict. While self-forgiveness may be applicable to many military health issues, we explore protective effects of self-forgiveness for personnel at risk of suicide. Implications for future research and clinical practice are discussed.
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Acknowledgement
We want to express our gratitude to the John Templeton Foundation (#14979, Relational Humility) for contributing the funding toward the current project that made it possible. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation.
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Griffin, B.J. et al. (2017). Self-Forgiveness and Military Service: Equipping Warriors to Combat Moral Injury. In: Woodyatt, L., Worthington, Jr., E., Wenzel, M., Griffin, B. (eds) Handbook of the Psychology of Self-Forgiveness. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60573-9_16
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