What are the differences between moral injury and PTSD?

Ten years ago we would have just called it post-traumatic stress disorder. Sixty years ago, it would have been combat fatigue. And in the shell-raked trenches of the Western Front, it would have been shell shock. But Jeff's dead kid was none of those things. Jeff's weight was something else — a moral injury. read more

I know there’s been a lot of confusion about PTSD and moral injury. PTSD is fear-based: you have an experience in which you fear you are about to lose your life. That activates your fight-or-flight system. The stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol pour into your bloodstream, pumps up your muscles and heart rate - getting you ready for crisis. read more

Moral injury usually stems from a precise moment in a service member's experience and is not an abstract issue, nor another name for PTSD. "Moral injury is so personal in so many ways," says Molly Boehm, a former case manager for recovering Marines and soldiers at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. read more

PTSD is a mental disorder that requires a diagnosis. Moral injury is a dimensional problem - there is no threshold for the presence of moral injury, rather, at a given point in time, a Veteran may have none, or mild to extreme manifestations. read more