Moral Injury: A Psycho, Social, and Spiritual Wound
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Learning Objectives
Participants will be able to:
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Identify at least 3 ethical considerations in treatment.
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Explain how to integrate interdisciplinary and community-based resources for ongoing support.
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Summarize the influence and implications of moral injury in substance use treatment and recovery.
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Identify 2 assessment tools to identify moral injury in substance users.
Description
What occurs when someone endures extremely stressful situations that go against their moral and ethical principles? How does one interpret what happened, why it happened, and what it implies for their future moral compass and well-being? Most potentially morally harmful experiences don’t always constitute a threat to life, in contrast to post-traumatic stress disorder, which can develop after trauma based on threat. By exploring one’s faith and strongly held convictions as they are threatened by morally repugnant circumstances. Moral damage is not regarded as a mental health condition, however, exposure to potentially morally harmful situations can result in severe feelings of guilt and shame, as well as changes in thoughts and beliefs (such as “I am a failure” or “colleagues don’t care about me”) and lead to maladaptive coping mechanisms (such as substance abuse, social disengagement, or self-destructive behavior). By examining key aspects and complex dynamics of moral injury, its relationship with substance use, and the influences moral injury may have on treatment and long-term recovery.
Target Audience
- Marriage & Family Therapist
- Physician
- Social Worker
- Nurse
- Substance Use Disorder Professionals
- Counselor
- Psychologist
Presenters
Mell McCracken serves as the Executive Director for No Matter What recovery center in Los Angeles, California. Mell is a fierce advocate for healing and transformation through substance abuse counseling, sex addiction therapy, and treatment program development. They have nearly a decade of experience and extensive expertise in empowering individuals to overcome their struggles with addiction, mental health, and navigating the complexities of chemsex in the queer community. Mell is nationally and internationally recognized as a certified LGBT+ educator, co-author, and treatment provider. They also serve as a faculty member at the International Institute of Trauma and Addiction Specialists.
With a career spanning over three and a half decades, Kathleen Murphy has dedicated her professional life to serving individuals grappling with relational and traumatic wounding complicated by substance use. She has been with Breathe Life Healing Center for over ten years and is currently is in private practice while simultaneously serving as the founding Chief Clinical Officer of Breathe Life Healing Center in Los Angeles.
Kathleen was also privileged to be Clinical Director of ONSITE Workshops- and was especially involved in supervising clinicians and deeply involved in the trauma workshop. She also had the opportunity to deepen her experiential group therapy skills at both the profound Breakthrough at Caron program in Wernersville Pa. and the Meadows in Wickenburg Az., where she had the privilege of being Supervised by Pia Mellody. Her history includes seven years working with families and individuals impacted by sexual assault and interpersonal violence while working at SAFE-PLACE in Austin, Texas. Her crisis intervention skills were also enhanced by volunteering with the Austin Police department’s Victim Services.
Kathleen’s work has been informed by a variety of practices and modalities such as Polyvagal theory, Buddhist Psychotherapy and other contemplative informed practices such as Trauma Sensitive and compassion based practices, Hakomi, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, EMDR, IFS, AEDP, Interpersonal Neurobiology, and Gestalt. She loves to participate with clients and colleagues alike in all kinds of polemics, dyadics and didactics. She regularly conducts psychoeducation, lectures and experiential group processes that are heavily influenced by attachment theory as well as psychodramatic techniques to assist clients in reframing and reclaiming the self as a being in relationship.
Her path was paved by earning her BA in Sociology and Philosophy at the University of Texas, at Austin and an MA in Counseling at St Edward’s University. She has a love of puppets, Kundalini Yoga, Sound Healing, Tibetan Buddhism, and all the various wisdom traditions.