Compassion Focused Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is an emerging treatment approach for individuals experiencing moral injury. Moral injury refers to the psychological distress resulting from events that transgress an individual's moral or ethical beliefs. The approach integrates EMDR with compassion-focused techniques to target the shame, guilt, and self-criticism often associated with moral injury.

This presentation will explore the dichotomy that often exists between individual and political dimensions to moral trauma and will use case examples such as the Hillsborough Disaster, abuse perpetrated by religious leaders, and country case studies engaged in trauma capacity building. Research on compassion focused EMDR for moral injury is still limited, but early studies suggest that it is a promising approach to treating moral injury.