Moral Injury
Moral injury is defined as a state of severe emotional and psychological anguish caused by a breach of a person’s core moral ideals.
It often occurs when an individual commits, fails to prevent, witnesses or learns about activities that violate firmly held moral values. What commonly follows is a profound sense of remorse and shame about the situation at hand.
It can also be caused by “institutional betrayal,” in which an individual believes they have been let down by their organisation, especially after a traumatic event.
Watch the workshop
Alison O’Connor Clinical Supervisor and Counsellor, Dr. Sophie Redlin G.P. and Mental Health Trainer, as well as Simon Edwards from the Moral Injury Partnership and Tim Rushmere Eleos Co-Founder, lift the lid on moral injury and its part in burnout.
Key takeaways:
Introduction to Moral Injury: Awareness and spotting the signs.
Preventative actions an individual can take to better manage the challenge.
Become a contributor
Have you experienced moral injury, or perhaps you’ve seen its effects on others?
We’re actively looking for individuals with relatable experience to contribute to the development of upcoming courses and programmes on moral injury and help build awareness of this crucial topic.
Moral Injury Panel
Alison O'Connor
Clinical Supervisor and Counsellor
Alison O'Connor
Alison is a counsellor, trainer and clinical supervisor with 25 years’ experience of groupwork, therapy and applied theatre. She has been privileged to work in diverse settings such as prisons, Romanian orphanages, in substance misuse, with military veterans and survivors of complex trauma. She worked for several years as Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in Counselling and Psychotherapy at University of South Wales. Her Churchill Fellowship, Transforming Trauma: Moral Injury and the Arts with military veterans, families and communities, opened the door to a creative, compassionate approach to wellbeing which links the personal, the political and the spiritual.
She is currently working with Sophie Redlin and Simon Edwards, two other Churchill fellows, on a retreat-based programme of restorative support for health and social care professionals impacted by moral injury and burnout during the Covid pandemic. Alison is Co-Founder of Re-Live, an Arts and Health charity providing an award-winning programme of groupwork and Life Story Theatre.
Dr. Sophie Redlin
G.P. and Mental Health Trainer
Dr. Sophie Redlin
Sophie Redlin is a GP, mental health trainer and researcher passionate about exploring and challenging the ways in which we view and manage emotional distress. She has conducted research into the influence of community, culture and environment on mental wellbeing around the world and in 2019 received a Churchill Fellowship to study indigenous talking circles in American Indian and Alaska Native populations in the US. She is currently expanding on this research through a Masters in Medical Anthropology at University College London.
Sophie is passionate about health and social care worker wellbeing and is privileged to be working alongside Alison O’Connor and Simon Edwards in building a restorative retreat programme to address the issue of moral injury in these sectors.
Simon Edwards
Moral Injury Partnership
Simon Edwards
After service in the British Army Simon ran the Pierre Victoire restaurant chain. He founded a charity, Believe pioneering coaching and mentoring in prisons He was the co-founder of Mowgli Mentoring, providing mentoring for entrepreneurs in the Middle East and Africa. He is a director of Urban Pursuit, supporting young people excluded from school and Bristol Distilling Company. He founded Serve On, a search and rescue charity that deployed a team to the Turkish earthquake. He designed a programme for Help for Heroes to address veteran mental health which led to a Churchill Fellowship. His report Soldier of Hope has inspired a focus on Moral Injury. Working with a GP and a Psychotherapist, he has established Moral Injury Partnership to develop solutions to this growing problem.
Tim Rushmere
Eleos Partnership Co-Founder
Tim Rushmere
Tim is a Lead Instructor and the Eleos Team’s programme designer. He is passionate about helping people and organisations confront adversity head on in search of sustaining optimal health to underpin performance.
With a background in product and graphic design Tim enjoyed 14 very active years in the British Army, including two operational tours, completing both Commando and Airborne selection and received an award for gallantry in 2007.
Having experienced ten years of changeable mental health and then significant mental illness Tim led a self-determined recovery by actively unpacking the root causes and the unhelpful behaviours that followed. Tim has experienced first-hand the complexities that poor mental health can create in both daily life and how it can be compounded within a high-performance culture, especially upon relationships, judgement and decision-making.
He understands the critical role of mastering a resilient mindset as the foundation to performance in life and applying practical personal strategies that embed positive, progressive development. An avid sportsman, he values the role physical fitness has to play in keeping the mind healthy and in the ongoing development of mental fitness.
Moral Injury & Moral Burnout
Moral injury is a devastating experience that can have a lasting impact on those who experience it, with the potential to affect people across organisations, including those who witness it in others.
Although moral injury is a relatively new concept from an academic perspective, it has likely existed ever since humans have been engaged in conflict or working under stressful conditions.