Preventing and Treating the Invisible Wounds of War : Combat Trauma, Moral Injury, and Psychological Health

Abstract

“Preventing and Treating the Invisible Wounds of War: Combat Trauma, Moral Injury, and Psychological Health” uniquely considers the uncounted costs of military involvement from medical, legal, and philosophical perspectives. Sub-diagnostic mental health conditions linked to military service, including moral injury or remote combat trauma, have complicated the assessment of risks of war. While these conditions demand identification and mitigation based on their impact on warfighters, each condition faces a crisis of legitimacy in the face of competing definitions and lack of longitudinal studies. This volume provides insight on how to address these sub-threshold conditions by adopting four vital perspectives. Proceeding from the proposition that policymakers should carefully consider the full spectrum of costs arising from combat operations when considering the nature and extent of personnel deployment and other commitments, Part I offers five essays that summarize the uncounted societal costs of war trauma. Part II refines the analysis by addressing how contemporary warfare methods have led to unique mental health costs, like moral injury. Having explored the manner in which the invisible wounds of war have imposed particular costs on military effectiveness and society at large, Part III examines methods to mitigate these costs (e.g., establishing diagnostic criteria for moral injury, recognizing moral injury in Veterans Affairs disability ratings). Mitigating these risks may very well require an interdisciplinary team, including military policymakers, surgeons general of the U.S. Armed Forces, public health practitioners, psychologists, philosophers, and Veterans Affairs, to codify these sub-diagnostic conditions into formally recognized mental health disorders.