National Moral Injury Conference
May 29-31, 2019

Transforming Moral Injury Across the Professions: Cultivating Moral Resilience Through Reflective Writing and Contemplative Practice—

“Transforming Moral Injury Across the Professions” is an experiential track designed for clinicians, war-fighters, chaplains, social workers, emergency workers, community organizers, VOA ministers and anyone interested in cultivating practical tools for sustainable self-care. This Track is relevant to anyone struggling with or seeking to understand any form of moral injury and critical incident stress, or anyone who works with others who experience or have experienced moral injury or critical incident stress. The skills learned help the healer heal the self, not by diminishing or minimizing moral adversity, but by naming it and addressing it. Under the guidance of two seasoned teachers with a strong background in health and well-being, participants learn the fine art of witnessing our own and others’ experience and extending compassion to ourselves and those we serve. How do we come to understand the contours of integrity in a situation where there were no good are outcomes possible? How do we transform that experience of moral stress, distress or injury, once we have named it, through reflection and contemplation? Using case studies and personal experience, we name where we find ourselves on the continuum of moral anguish and moral suffering, and then begin to learn to transform it. Participants learn practices such as journaling, spiritual life writing, walking the labyrinth, sitting meditation and other forms of exploration and meaning-making that realistically support recovery from moral adversity and the building of moral resilience.

Joanne M. Braxton, Ph. D., M.Div. is Emeritus Professor at the College of William & Mary and Adjunct Professor of Family and Community Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School, where she headed the Narrative Medicine for Excellence Project. An accomplished scholar, writer, healer and ordained minister, she has been David B. Larson Fellow in Spirituality and Health at the Library of Congress Kluge Center. Dr. Braxton is also CEO and lead creative for the Braxton Institute for Sustainability, Resiliency and Joy 501 (c) 3, a co-host of the 2017 Moral Injury and Collective Healing advanced training seminar held in Princeton.

Cynda Hylton Rushton, PhD, RN, FAAN is the Bunting Professor of Clinical Ethics in the Johns Hopkins University’s Berman Institute of Bioethics & Schools of Nursing and Medicine. In 2016, she co-led a national initiative: Transforming Moral Distress into Moral Resilience in Nursing and co-chaired the American Nurses Association panel that created A Call to Action: Exploring Moral Resilience Toward a Culture of Ethical Practice. She is editor/author of Moral Resilience: Transforming Moral Suffering in Healthcare and member of the National Academies of Science, Engineering & Medicine’s Committee on System Approaches to Improve Patient Care by Supporting Clinician Wellbeing.