FAQs Soul Repair

Do you do counseling with veterans or families or offer treatment programs?

We consider our work as value-added to programs that provide direct services to veterans and families. We train clergy, chaplains, social workers, medical staff, counselors, and clinicians about moral injury so they may be more effective in working with veterans. We are not a counseling center, but we welcome veterans and families to stop by to visit our offices and learn about our work and to learn about resources in the community available to them.

How is moral injury different from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)?

PTSD is an injury in the amygdala and hippocampus areas of the brain that regulate emotions. Moral Injury is not a psychological disorder, but a normal moral response to the ambiguities of war, especially in a counterinsurgency context. It requires a healthy pre-frontal cortex, where reflection on moral values and empathy occur, and it has the quality of a slow burn, so it can take years to surface and exact its toll.

Is the launch on Nov 12 open to the public?

Yes! Please register and attend!

Does the Soul Repair Center take an anti-war position?

We do not take any position with regard to particular wars or war in general. Our mission is to support all who experience moral injury. Moral injury can be found in veterans who have served in wars they believe to have been just and moral, and it can be found in veterans who were required to fight despite moral objections to serving. We honor and respect the various perspectives of the veterans we work with, and our training programs encourage deep listening to the moral questions and struggles of veterans, rather than political debates about war.

If our congregation or organization would like to participate in your pilot program, what should we be doing now to educate and prepare our members?

Look at the resource page of this website and consider having a book group to discuss some of the suggested readings or watch one or more of the films and discuss them. Work on getting commitments from all members to undertake the work and form a steering committee to help them.

How do you envision the therapeutic and religious communities working together on PTSD and moral injury?

We will be offering continuing education opportunities for clinicians to further their work and inviting clinicians to educate religious leaders and communities about how they treat PTSD, as well as what members of the public can or should not try to do in helping people with PTSD.

How long will it take before community training programs will be ready for the pilot program?

We hope to have the first training materials ready by the first of 2013 and a complete initial trial program ready by mid 2013. As these materials are tested and refined, we will begin offering online training sessions, regional conferences, and other ways of helping community organizations and congregations trained.

Will your program include training for professional clergy or other mature religious leaders?

Yes. We will be offering continuing education opportunities, online courses, and other ways for professionals to enhance their ministries by learning about moral injury.

What will happen to your program after the two years of your grant?

We will continue to pursue other grants and private donors to assure that our work will continue. You can help by making an ongoing commitment by establishing a regular, recurring donation of any amount, annually, monthly, weekly, or quarterly. Recurring donations allow us to prepare annual budgets with the assurance we will have the funds to continue.

How can we become a regional center?

You will need to be in a place that has a theological school or other accredited institution of higher education that can provide space to house and staff to administer the program. In addition, you should be near a VA facility that can cooperate with your program.