@article{ref1,
title="Empathy is key in the development of moral injury",
journal="European journal of psychotraumatology",
year="2020",
author="Ter Heide, F. Jackie June",
volume="11",
number="1",
pages="e1843261-e1843261",
abstract="BACKGROUND: Moral injury is a relatively new field within psychotraumatology that focuses on understanding and treating psychosocial symptoms after exposure to  potentially morally injurious events (PMIE's). There are currently three models of  the development of moral injury which centre around the influence of attributions,  coping and exposure. While the capacity for empathy is known to underlie moral  behaviour, current models for moral injury do not explicitly include empathy-related  factors. <br><br>OBJECTIVE: This paper aims to make a case for complementing current models  of the development of moral injury with the perception-action model of empathy  (PAM). <br><br>METHOD: In this paper, the perception-action mechanism of empathy and the  empathic behaviour that it may initiate, are described. The PAM states that  perception of another person's emotional state activates the observer's own  representations of that state. This forms the basis for empathic behaviour, such as  helping, by which an observer tries to alleviate both another person's and their  own, empathic, distress. In this paper it is proposed that in PMIE's, empathic or  moral behaviour is expected but not, or not successfully, performed, and  consequently distress is not alleviated. Factors known to influence the empathic  response, including attention, emotion-regulation, familiarity and similarity, are  hypothesized to also influence the development of moral injury. <br><br>RESULTS: Two cases  are discussed which illustrate how factors involved in the PAM may help explain the  development of moral injury. <br><br>CONCLUSIONS: As empathy forms the basis for moral  behaviour, empathy-related factors are likely to influence the development of moral  injury. Research will have to show whether this hypothesis holds true in actual  practice.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="2000-8198",
doi="10.1080/20008198.2020.1843261",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/20008198.2020.1843261"
}