Moral injuries and wellbeing: evidence from the Canadian Defence

Mentally dissociating from Potential Moral Injurious Events (PMIEs) is important in building resilience. It eliminates the unnecessary guilt, shame, and emotions associated with moral injuries. This chapter aims to improve the effectiveness of military forces’ resilience-building efforts in the context of Moral Injury (MI) for their well-being and work-life balance. Specifically, this study synthesizes knowledge about soldiers with guilt, shame and loss of trust and how committal or non-committal to an act harms in battle conflict. We used qualitative study and triangulation methodology to develop a framework based on a literature review synthesis, anecdotal evidence and years of the author’s interviews, experience and insight. Our framework indicates that the mental ability to dissociate from PMIE is an essential component of resilience, which serves as a buffer and moderates the relationship between PMIE exposure and MI occurrence. The soldiers should not have long-lasting self-blame, regret, and anger, as they are irrelevant due to the nature of the combatant’s role. This study has two implications for human resource training managers. First, this study develops a framework that can be used to identify factors that contribute to the effectiveness of the resilience-building process. Second, an inverse correlation between dissociation from PMIEs and the mental status of soldiers’ MI diagnosis outcome is a ground for pre-deployment training to include the particular strength in resilience building, which results in striking a work-life balance. For future research, the proposed framework can be empirically tested internationally for its effectiveness across cultures.