The therapeutic role of self-transcendence in moral injury recovery: theory, mechanisms, and clinical implications (opens in new tab)

A growing body of psychological and neuroscientific research suggests that moral injury (MI) involves maladaptive self-referential processing, including disruptions in moral identity, rigid negative self-appraisals, and impaired meaning-making following exposure to potentially morally injurious events (PMIEs). Building on Mindfulness-to-Meaning Theory (MMT), this paper proposes self-transcendence (ST)—a metacognitive state characterized by reduced self-focus, expanded awareness, transcendent ...