Moral Injury for LGBTQ+ Individuals and their Communities

Abstract

Introduction: Moral injury describes the severe distress and associated impairments that result from experiencing specific traumatic events. These are events that violate the values or core beliefs of the injured person, and are often directed from a person in a position of power. Research on moral injury is not new, but has typically had a limited focus (e.g., on moral injury sustained during war) and has only recently begun to focus on the context and severity of moral injuries for individuals from minoritized communities. Contents of Paper: This paper: (a) puts forward a case that members of the LGBTQ+ communities are at-risk individuals for moral injury, and in particular religious or spiritual injuries; (b) presents the findings of a scoping review (using a systematic search) that evaluates the extant evidence on LGTBQ + moral injury, and; (c) details a series of considerations for practitioners who are supporting LGBTQ+ survivors of moral injury. Conclusion: We close this paper with an urgent call for more on the scope and nature of moral injury for LGBTQ+ individuals and their communities, in order to help better inform interventions and other forms of support for survivors.