Contextual dimensions of moral injury: An interdisciplinary review.

The concept of moral injury, referring to the psychological impact of having one's moral expectations and beliefs violated, is gaining a firm place in research on military trauma. Yet, although moral injury has the recognized potential to extend the understanding of trauma beyond the individualizing and pathologizing focus of the clinical realm, most studies nevertheless focus on clinical assessment, diagnosis and treatment. This review aims to contribute to a better understanding of contextual dimensions of moral injury.

Warnings against romanticising moral injury.

Interest in the concept of moral injury among researchers, clinicians and policy makers can have undesirable consequences that are rarely considered. It can lead to misunderstanding of post-traumatic stress disorder, risks of primary and secondary gains for affected individuals and tertiary gains for third parties. This editorial calls for critical assessment of this sensitive matter.

Moral injury in relation to public debates: The role of societal misrecognition in moral conflict-colored trauma among soldiers.

The last decade has witnessed fast-growing scholarly interest in the concept of moral injury, which addresses the link between the ethics of military intervention and deployment-related suffering. However, current research on moral injury, predominantly psychological in nature, tends to approach the phenomenon as an internally contained disorder. Consequently, it medicalizes moral injury and de-contextualizes it from the people who send soldiers to conflict zones and 'welcome' them back.

[Forensic assessments from the Netherlands Institute of Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology in retrospect; applications of genetics and neuroscience, in 2000 and 2009].

Background: Developments in neurosciences and genetics are relevant for forensic psychiatry.

Aim: To find out whether and how genetic and neuroscientific applications are being used in forensic psychiatric assessments, and, if they are, to estimate to what extent new applications will fit in with these uses.

Method: We analysed 60 forensic psychiatric assessments from the Netherlands Institute of Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology, Pieter Baan Center, and 30 non-clinical assessments from 2000 and 2009.

Conflicting Notions on Violence and PTSD in the Military: Institutional and Personal Narratives of Combat-Related Illness.

Research indicates that soldiers struggling with PTSD under-utilize mental health care. Quantitative studies of barriers to care point to the importance of soldiers' beliefs about mental health and mental health interventions in their care-seeking behavior, yet these studies still struggle to understand the particular beliefs involved and the ways they impact care-seeking behavior. This preliminary study makes a start in examining these questions through qualitative literature analysis.