To evaluate the prevailing definitions and conceptual models of moral injury, identify implicit assumptions, and explore the potential for a relational understanding of moral injury.
Approach:
Conceptual Analysis: The paper conducts a conceptual analysis of influential etiological accounts of moral injury, identifying assumptions about morality that burden the standard model.
Literature Review: A literature review charts the development of the standard conceptual model of moral injury etiology.
Application of Ockham's Razor: Ockham's Razor is applied to identify unnecessary complexities in the standard model, suggesting a shift towards a minimalist, social-functionalist conception of morality.
Key Findings:
The core conceptual model of moral injury has remained largely unchanged despite acknowledged limitations.
Numerous implicit and untested assumptions about morality burden the standard model.
Current treatments focus on relational repair, indicating that moral injury may be better understood as relational disruption rather than belief violation.
Interpretation:
The findings suggest that the moral injury research community should reconsider the prevailing conceptual paradigm to facilitate progress in understanding and treatment.
Limitations:
The analysis requires additional development and testing for actionable application in clinical contexts.
The proposed alternative paradigms need further exploration by the clinical research community.
Conclusion:
The paper advocates for a theoretical intervention to address the limitations of the current moral injury conceptual framework.
