Recognising the wound beneath the symptoms
A full-day continuing professional development programme for therapists and practitioners working with trauma, betrayal, identity, and loss of meaning. This training gives language to a wound that is often felt in the room long before it is named.
Why this matters
Moral injury remains a formulation rather than a diagnosis, so it can slip past screening tools and be mistaken for depression or PTSD. Practitioners often feel it in the room before they have the language to describe what is happening.
Formulation, not diagnosis
Moral injury can slip past screening tools because it is often carried as formulation rather than formal diagnosis.
Shame runs deep
The shame attached to moral injury can be deeper than the guilt often seen within PTSD presentations.
Betrayal is central
The wound may involve betrayal by institutions, leaders, systems, or by the self in the face of what happened.
Meaning can fracture
Loss of meaning, faith, or inner coherence often sits close to the emotional pain, even when it is not named directly.
Moral injury began in military thinking, but it shows up wherever people are asked to act against their values or live with the cost of what happened when they could not stop it. The training speaks into practice across sectors where shame, betrayal, and meaning are central.
01
Tell temporary moral distress apart from an injury that reshapes identity and alters how a person understands themselves.
02
Map moral injury alongside PTSD and Complex PTSD, and understand where they overlap without collapsing them into one thing.
03
Recognise the beliefs, language, and presentations that point to a moral wound beneath symptoms, shame, or withdrawal.
04
Draw on shame-informed, attachment-aware, and meaning-making approaches with care, steadiness, and humility.
The structure moves from foundations and formulation through to presentation, case material, and therapeutic response.
Morning
09:30
Module 1 · What is Moral Injury?
10:20
Module 2 · Distress vs Injury
11:00
Break
11:15
Module 3 · Internal Working Models
12:15
Module 4 · Differential Formulation
Afternoon
13:00
Lunch
13:45
Module 5 · Presentations in Therapy
14:45
Module 6 · Case Studies
16:00
Module 7 · Therapeutic Considerations
16:45
Reflection, discussion and Q&A
The day uses case material from different contexts so practitioners can recognise how moral injury can appear through very different biographies, roles, and forms of suffering.
Healthcare
An ICU consultant living with impossible triage decisions during COVID and the cost of what could not be prevented.
Veteran
A person carrying the impact of a civilian casualty sustained during deployment and the beliefs that followed it home.
Social worker
Removing children from their parents in the child's best interests while living with the emotional and moral aftermath.
Survivor of abuse
A child forced into harming a sibling in order to survive, and the lasting injury carried in identity, meaning, and trust.
This is not a rigid treatment model. It is a clinically useful framework that helps practitioners listen differently, formulate more carefully, and work with greater respect for shame, attachment, identity, and meaning.
Learning is applied as it lands, without requiring participants to disclose personal trauma. The day stays reflective, boundaried, and closely connected to practice.
1 day
Full-day, in-house or blended delivery
7
Modules from foundations through to practice
4
Cross-sector case-study themes
CPD
Certificated professional development
Available as an in-house full day or blended delivery, with certificated CPD framing for professionals and teams who want deeper therapeutic understanding rather than surface-level awareness.
Use the form below if you would like to discuss the training model, the right programme for your setting, or a CPD day for your team.