Morally injurious experiences and mental health: The moderating role of self-compassion.

Abstract

Introduction:Military veterans are at heightened risk for developing mental and behavioral health problems. Morally injurious combat experiences have recently gained empirical and clinical attention following the increased rates of mental and behavioral health problems observed in this population. Objective: Extending extant research, the current investigation assessed the relationship between morally injurious experiences and mental and behavioral health outcomes. Furthermore, it examined the potential protective role of self-compassion in these relationships. Method: Participants were 203 military veterans (M age ϭ 35.08 years, 77.30% male) who completed online questionnaires. Results: Analyses indicated that self-compassion significantly moderated the relationship between exposure to morally injurious experiences and posttraumatic stress disorder, depression severity, and deliberate self-harm versatility. Conclusions: These results highlight the potential clinical utility of self-compassion in military mental health, particularly in the context of morally injurious experiences. Clinical Impact StatementMilitary veterans experience various stressors while deployed, one of which is exposure to events that are perceived as morally transgressive. Exposure to morally transgressive events has been linked to various negative outcomes. The current study examined whether the relation between morally injurious event exposure and negative mental health outcomes would be lower for individuals high in self-compassion. We found that individuals high in self-compassion (vs. low) had significantly fewer of these negative mental health symptoms after exposure to these events, including fewer posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms, depression symptoms, and deliberate self-harm versatility. This study emphasized that self-compassion may be an important consideration in military mental health, and more research is needed to examine the potential clinical utility of self-compassion.

Cross-Cultural Comparison of Mental Health Between German and South African Employees: Shame, Self-Compassion, Work Engagement, and Work Motivation

“…Individuals with high selfcompassion tend to be more aware that hardships are common to the human lives, leading to a balanced view of stressful events (Chishima et al, 2018). Moreover, their non-judgmental openness to present experience allows them to accept negative emotional and cognitive experiences more easily (e.g., Forkus et al, 2019;Anjum et al, 2020). Indeed, a meta-analysis, which examined 79 samples identified a significant relationship between self-compassion and well-being (Zessin et al, 2015).…”

Defining Moral Injury Among Military Populations: A Systematic Review

“…All articles included populations with experience with military service either directly through their personal service or indirectly as professionals working with military personnel. Articles with quantitative procedures ( n = 17), including psychometric analyses, collected data from U.S. veteran populations (i.e., Braitman et al., 2018; Currier, Foster, & Isaak, 2019; Currier, Holland, Drescher, & Foy, 2015; Currier et al., 2018; Forkus, Breines, & Weiss, 2019; Frankfurt et al., 2018; Lancaster & Harris, 2018; Richardson et al., 2019; Smigelsky, Mallot, Veazey Morris, Berlin, & Neimeyer, 2019), both veterans and active duty personnel (i.e., Battles et al., 2018; C. Bryan et al., 2016; Koenig et al., 2018a, 2018b; Litz et al., 2018), active duty Marines (i.e., Nash et al., 2013), or members of the National Guard/Reserves (i.e., C. Bryan, Bryan, Roberge, Leifker, & Rozek, 2018). Additionally, Battaglia et al.…”

Self-Compassion and Veteran's Health: A Scoping Review

“…There appears to be a growing interest in self-compassion and military veterans' health (Forkus et al, 2019a(Forkus et al, , 2019b. Self-compassion strategies may help veterans to remain healthy and well.…”

“…Historically, self-compassion (SC) has been embedded in Buddhist philosophy and meditation, practiced for over 2,500 years. SC has been defined as "being caring and compassionate towards oneself in the face of hardship or perceived inadequacy" (Neff, 2003a, p. 140), and is considered as an adaptive emotional regulation strategy (Forkus et al, 2019a(Forkus et al, , 2019bInwood & Ferrari, 2018;Scoglio et al, 2018). Neff (2003b) described three interrelated elements for SC, those being: self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness.…”

“…There is evidence that when a person has high levels of anxiety, stress, and/or a history of depression, that this is associated with low levels of SC (Neff, 2003a(Neff, , 2003bMacBeath & Gumley, 2012). There appears to be some evidence of a similar association between SC and MH problems within the veteran population and this has instigated an interest in how SC can have an impact the health and wellbeing of military veterans (Forkus et al, 2019a(Forkus et al, , 2019b.…”