Community-based Reparative Action as Moral Injury Recovery

This paper will contend with Judith Herman’s recent publication, Truth and Repair (2023) bridging Herman’s emphasis on trauma and justice with best practices of recovery in the aftermath of moral injury. Because moral injury is social-relational in nature, recovery must integrate pro-social reparative action rooted in an engaged, trustworthy and compassionate community. This paper will highlight three community-based reparative action approaches – community service, activism, and Restorative Justice practices. These approaches are effective: (1) by functioning as an engaged, trustworthy, and compassionate community; and (2) by exercising moral responsibility as a collective matter not an individual pathology. The Western clinical-medical paradigm is not capable of fully addressing the needs of the moral injured because it is not designed to respond to the demands created by moral transgressions (i.e. injustices). Without community-based reparative action a person can develop a learned helplessness resulting in worsening social-relational isolation, destructive behaviors, depression, and suicidality.