Episode 1

Soul Repair: After Moral Injury is hosted by Dr. Susan Diamond and Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock. And is produced by Studio D Podcast Production.

Episode 1: What Is Moral Injury?

What makes love possible and sustainable when we face shattering loss, horror, betrayal, and brokenness? In this episode, we begin our exploration into moral injury as rooted in human goodness. Experts in religion and philosophy join hosts Rita and Susan to consider what makes moral injury so crucial for today's spiritual leaders to understand and what we can learn about the repair of souls on the journey through the worst challenges we face in life.

Hosts:

Rev. Rita Nakashima Brock, Ph.D., is Senior Vice President for Moral Injury Programs at Volunteers of America (VOA) and a Commissioned Minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the Capital Region. She is a former professor and academic administrator and co- author of Soul Repair: Recovering from Moral Injury After War. An online, one-hour moral distress-relief program at VOA is open to the public at www.voa.org/rest.

Rev. Susan Ward Diamond, D.Min., is Lead Pastor of Florence Christian Church, Florence, KY, and was ordained as a pastor in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in 1990. She has served on a number of boards and leadership roles in the denomination, including moderator of the church. She is author of The Daily Grind:  GOD with Your Coffee. Her daily blog, “Thoughts for the Day,” can be found at pastorsusantftd.wordpress.com.

Guests:

Dr. Aristotle Papanikolau, Professor of Theology and Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University

Rev. Dr. Brian Powers, U.S. Air Force veteran and Assistant Professor, Vann Fellow in Christianity and the Armed Forces, and Executive Director of the International Centre for Moral Injury at Durham University, UK

Rabbi Nancy Wiener, Founding Director of the Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Center for Pastoral Counseling; Dr. Paul and Trudy Steinberg Distinguished Professor in Human Relations at Hebrew Union College and Jewish Institute of Religion

Dr. Joseph Wiinikka-Lydon, Senior Research Analyst, The Intelligence Project, Southern Poverty Law Center and former Lecturer in Religion and Assistant Director, Center for Principled Problem Solving and Excellence in Teaching at Guilford College

Resources:

Rita Nakashima Brock and Gabriella Lettini, Soul Repair: Recovering from Moral Injury After War, Beacon 2012.

Kim Geringer and Nancy Wiener, “Insights into Moral Injury and Soul Repair from Classical Jewish Texts,” Journal of Pastoral Psychology, 2019/02/01.

Brett Litz, et. al., 2009. Moral injury and moral repair in war veterans: A preliminary model and intervention strategy. Clinical Psychology Review 29, 695–706, p. 695.

Aristotle Papanikolaou, “What Is Moral about Moral Injury? A Virtue Approach, in Moral Injury and Beyond: Understanding Human Anguish and Healing Traumatic Wounds, ed. Renos Papadopoulous, Routledge, 2020.

Brian Powers, Full Darkness: Moral Injury, Original Sin, and Wartime Violence, Eerdmans, 2019.

Jonathan Shay, Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Unmaking of Character. Athenaeum Press, 1994.

Joseph Wiinikka-Lydon, Moral Injury and the Promise of Virtue, Palgrave McMillan, 2019.

For online Moral Distress Relief: www.voa.org/rest.

How You Can Help Us Grow

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Volunteers of America

If Uncovering Moral Injury has piqued your interest, head over to Volunteers of America at voa.org/moralinjury. There you’ll find resources, conferences and events as well as other ways to connect with the Shay Moral Injury Center.

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