Papers by MaryCatherine McDonald
Essays in Philosophy, 2017
Coined by Jonathan Shay, a clinician who works with combat veterans, the term 'moral injury' refe... more Coined by Jonathan Shay, a clinician who works with combat veterans, the term 'moral injury' refers to an injury that occurs when one's moral beliefs are betrayed. Shay developed the term to capture the shame and guilt of veterans he saw in his clinical practice. Since then, debates about moral injury have centered around the 'what' (what kinds of actions count as morally injurious and why?) and the 'who' of moral injury (should moral injuries be restricted to the guilt and shame that I feel for what I do? Or is it possible to be morally injured by what I witness?). Clinicians universally acknowledge the challenge of treating moral injuries. I will argue that this is in part because there is an essential piece of the theoretical construct that has been left behind. Namely, when veterans are morally injured, they are not only haunted by what they have done (or failed to do) but also by the specter of a world without morals.
International Journal of Feminist Approaches To Bioethics, Feb 1, 2018
The cluster of symptoms now called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) had its beginning in ''h... more The cluster of symptoms now called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) had its beginning in ''hysteria,'' a syndrome that affected only women. This paper explores the way that the perniciously essentialist beginnings of trauma research have bled into our understanding and treatment of trauma today. I use the work of Sandra Lee Bartky, who argues that psychological fragmentation forms the basis of the oppression of women, to show the way that the psychological landscape has been shaped in parallel ways for the traumatized veteran. Understanding trauma in nongendered ways illustrates that the trauma response is an adaptive mechanism born of resilience.
Despite the fact that we have been studying posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) since at least t... more Despite the fact that we have been studying posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) since at least the late 1800s, it remains prevalent and, in many cases intractable. Merleau-Ponty and a Phenomenology of PTSD: Hidden Ghosts of Traumatic Memory begins with the assertion that we struggle to successfully treat PTSD because we simply do not understand it well enough. Using the phenomenological approach of Maurice Merleau-Ponty – which focuses on the first-person, lived experience of the trauma victim – Merleau-Ponty and a Phenomenology of PTSD: Hidden Ghosts of Traumatic Memory focuses on reframing our understanding of combat trauma in two fundamental ways. … [From amazon.com]https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/philosophy_fac_books/1014/thumbnail.jp
The process of thanking those who have been instrumental in the completion of this work feels alm... more The process of thanking those who have been instrumental in the completion of this work feels almost as daunting as writing the work itself. We have this illusion about writing: that one simply sits down and writes. Alone. And then it's done. This is far from true. There are those who help directly-by reading drafts, talking through ideas, and providing research sources. Then there are those who help indirectly-by being themselves, believing in you, making sure that you eat and sleep and laugh, reminding you of why you started this process in the first place. I will try to thank them all here. First, I would like to express my immense appreciation to my advisors, Professor Daniel O. Dahlstrom and Professor Victor Kestenbaum. Professor Dahlstrom signed on to be my advisor before he really knew me at all, and embarked with me on this lengthy voyage that involved more reading and rewriting than can possibly be normal. Thank you for being so patient with me, and for catching all of my dangling modifiers. Professor Kestenbaum believed in this project before I did, and shaped it (and me) in innumerable ways. Your perspective has been like the beacon from a lighthouse, guiding me through the night. Thank you for teaching me about what it means to live phenomenologically. Thank you to Professor Basu for being much less scary than I imagined a neuroscientist to be, and for being as open and curious to my field as I am to yours. Thank you to Professor Aho: your work is part of what inspired this project and I'm honored you agreed to help. It's so exciting when the giants in the field are willing to look at your work. Finally, thank you to Walter Hopp, for without your phenomenology course this project would not exist. There are not words to adequately express my gratitude for the members of the philosophy department at Holy Cross, who have not just been my colleagues but my friends, family, and co-conspirators. They have been my family during this whole process, and I vi would not have been able to complete this without them. Each of them has contributed in both small and enormous ways to my life over the past two years. Thank you to May Sim (and Wes DeMarco!), who made me believe that I really could write the first draft over the summer; to Kendy Hess for sharing in the burden of this and for strategizing over drinks; to Joseph Lawrence for being so unrelentingly real (and for reading my crappy poetry); to Fr. Bill Stempsey, Karsten Stueber, and Andrea Borghini for your work always inspires interesting questions and debates; to John Manoussakis for being the embodiment of cool; and to Predrag Cicovacki for getting me into this whole mess in the first place. Thank you especially to Larry Cahoone for the three thousand or so pep talks, for strategizing and commiserating with me, for supporting me in every area of my life, and for listening to more of my stories than anyone should ever have to (sometimes more than once!). Thank you to Jeff Bernstein for being so especially warm and charming (and hilarious), for sharing books and thoughts and music, and for believing in me with an unwavering strength. Thank you to Christopher A. Dustin, for meeting me in the mist and carrying me through it, and for reminding me why I loved all of this to begin with. Thank you to each and every one of my students, who consistently inspire me. Thank you of course to my family and friends who have supported me not just through this project but always. Thank you to the SBS Fellowship for inspiring me to be… just to be. Finally, thank you most of all to my parents, whose absence is finally becoming a comforting presence. vii
Idealistic Studies, 2012
We do not always survive trauma. Elie Wiesel said of Primo Levi, a holocaust survivor who committ... more We do not always survive trauma. Elie Wiesel said of Primo Levi, a holocaust survivor who committed suicide at age sixty-seven, “[he] died at Auschwitz forty years earlier.” Though Levi physically survived the holocaust, psychically he did not. And yet, there are countless stories of incredible triumph over trauma. What makes survival possible? What seems to separate those who recover from those who do not—at least in part—is the capacity and opportunity for adaptation. Adaptation is the phenomenon whereby the subject is able to make use of one or more coping mechanisms in order to adjust to traumatic disruption. In this paper I argue that narrative is an especially useful tool for adapting to trauma because it addresses one of the things that is so disruptive about trauma: the inability to process the traumatic event.
In American and NATO Veteran Reintegration, MaryCatherine McDonald and Gary Senecal examine menta... more In American and NATO Veteran Reintegration, MaryCatherine McDonald and Gary Senecal examine mental health issues among former American service members. Data shows that American veterans suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at significantly higher rates than veterans in other NATO ally countries involved in the war in Afghanistan. McDonald and Senecal argue that sociocultural factors, such as military training and civilian culture, have a dramatic impact on these rates.https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/philosophy_fac_books/1025/thumbnail.jp
Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-jhp-10.1177_0022167820972214 for The Impact of Moral Injury and D... more Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-jhp-10.1177_0022167820972214 for The Impact of Moral Injury and Disclosure of Military Experiences on Veterans by Richard La Fleur, MaryCatherine McDonald, Gary Senecal and Charles Coey in Journal of Humanistic Psychology
Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 2020
While many veterans face physical, psychological, and spiritual difficulties, research suggests t... more While many veterans face physical, psychological, and spiritual difficulties, research suggests that the reintegration process from military service to civilian life, is a complex one. Our study focused on the role of moral injury and the disclosure of military experience in this transition, and how they might combine to affect veterans’ life satisfaction. We gave a battery of surveys to a large and diverse sample of veterans, measuring aspects of military culture and service, the moral ramifications of military experiences and attitudes and experiences with disclosing these experiences to civilians. Most important, we found that greater moral injury was associated with greater concerns about disclosure. Greater disclosure concerns were associated with lower perceptions of disclosure support, which in turn was associated with lower life satisfaction. We conclude that these findings suggest that a more nuanced account is required to fully understand the relationship between moral inj...
Essays in Philosophy, 2017
Coined by Jonathan Shay, a clinician who works with combat veterans, the term 'moral injury' refe... more Coined by Jonathan Shay, a clinician who works with combat veterans, the term 'moral injury' refers to an injury that occurs when one's moral beliefs are betrayed. Shay developed the term to capture the shame and guilt of veterans he saw in his clinical practice. Since then, debates about moral injury have centered around the 'what' (what kinds of actions count as morally injurious and why?) and the 'who' of moral injury (should moral injuries be restricted to the guilt and shame that I feel for what I do? Or is it possible to be morally injured by what I witness?). Clinicians universally acknowledge the challenge of treating moral injuries. I will argue that this is in part because there is an essential piece of the theoretical construct that has been left behind. Namely, when veterans are morally injured, they are not only haunted by what they have done (or failed to do) but also by the specter of a world without morals.
Idealistic Studies, 2012
We do not always survive trauma. Elie Wiesel said of Primo Levi, a holocaust survivor who committ... more We do not always survive trauma. Elie Wiesel said of Primo Levi, a holocaust survivor who committed suicide at age sixty-seven, “[he] died at Auschwitz forty years earlier.” Though Levi physically survived the holocaust, psychically he did not. And yet, there are countless stories of incredible triumph over trauma. What makes survival possible? What seems to separate those who recover from those who do not—at least in part—is the capacity and opportunity for adaptation. Adaptation is the phenomenon whereby the subject is able to make use of one or more coping mechanisms in order to adjust to traumatic disruption. In this paper I argue that narrative is an especially useful tool for adapting to trauma because it addresses one of the things that is so disruptive about trauma: the inability to process the traumatic event.
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among combat veterans remains an urgent and intractable pro... more Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among combat veterans remains an urgent and intractable problem for those who have served in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In this paper, we argue that one of the reasons that combat related PTSD remains so difficult to treat is because psychologists and American culture at large do not fully understand it yet. It is our contention that there are two contributing factors that currently hinder our ability to successfully treat combat related PTSD. The first is a failure to look critically at the theoretical underpinnings that ground our current understanding of the disorder. The second related issue is our tendency to look to reductionist explanations and treatments. We use the theoretical framework of phenomenology alongside a case study of a man we call James in order to present this argument.
Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology
IJFAB: International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics
Abstract:The cluster of symptoms now called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) had its beginni... more Abstract:The cluster of symptoms now called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) had its beginning in "hysteria," a syndrome that affected only women. This paper explores the way that the perniciously essentialist beginnings of trauma research have bled into our understanding and treatment of trauma today. I use the work of Sandra Lee Bartky, who argues that psychological fragmentation forms the basis of the oppression of women, to show the way that the psychological landscape has been shaped in parallel ways for the traumatized veteran. Understanding trauma in nongendered ways illustrates that the trauma response is an adaptive mechanism born of resilience.
Journal of Humanistic Psychology
While many veterans face physical, psychological, and spiritual difficulties, research suggests t... more While many veterans face physical, psychological, and spiritual difficulties, research suggests that the reintegration process from military service to civilian life, is a complex one. Our study focused on the role of moral injury and the disclosure of military experience in this transition, and how they might combine to affect veterans’ life satisfaction. We gave a battery of surveys to a large and diverse sample of veterans, measuring aspects of military culture and service, the moral ramifications of military experiences and attitudes and experiences with disclosing these experiences to civilians. Most important, we found that greater moral injury was associated with greater concerns about disclosure. Greater disclosure concerns were associated with lower perceptions of disclosure support, which in turn was associated with lower life satisfaction. We conclude that these findings suggest that a more nuanced account is required to fully understand the relationship between moral inj...
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among combat veterans remains an urgent and intractable pro... more Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among combat veterans remains an urgent and intractable problem for those who have served in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In this paper, we argue that one of the reasons that combat related PTSD remains so difficult to treat is because psychologists-and American culture at large-do not fully understand it yet. It is our contention that there are two contributing factors that currently hinder our ability to successfully treat combat related PTSD. The first is a failure to look critically at the theoretical underpinnings that ground our current understanding of the disorder. The second related issue is our tendency to look to reductionist explanations and treatments. We use the theoretical framework of phenomenology alongside a case study of a man we call James in order to present this argument.
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Papers by MaryCatherine McDonald