ABSTRACT
As a function of empathy, intuition, habit, behavior, and conscious reflection, moral character is crucial to human existence. This chapter, using clinical research and personal narratives, examines three core questions about moral conscience and good character that are devastated by moral injury: When core moral values can be so changed that people can desire to cause harm to others, what is required to effect such change? And, if such a change results in inner distress and trauma and destroys good character, is it further changeable? In addressing these questions, the complexity of moral injury is explored in relation to the multi-dimensional power of rituals in Native American and Buddhist traditions, currently in use, to integrate moral injury. In their constructions of collective liminal spaces, rituals enable the recovery of whole persons through connections to others and focus on the reclamation of empathy and compassion, which lead to self-forgiveness and the integration of moral injury into a larger life narrative.
