Revisiting Living in Limbo to Illustrate a Pastoral Psychological Understanding of Transition from Military to Civilian Life

Grimell, Jan

doi:10.1007/s11089-019-00881-6

Cited by 10 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 27 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…However, on her return home, she could not receive a service rating for the position in question because she did not meet the formal military requirements. Fanny was left alone to deal with and make sense of a strong veteran identity ( 46 , 70 ), the deployment itself, the sacrifices she had made ( 60 ), the return home ( 5 , 71 , 72 ) and the demoralizing message that her service did not count in a formal military sense. She was never formally seen or acknowledged for the contribution she had made.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moral injury: understanding Swedish veterans who are assessed but not diagnosed with PTSD

Grimell

2023

Front. Psychiatry

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article is based on an interview study of 24 Swedish veterans who experienced deteriorating mental health and increased suffering without meeting the criteria for a PTSD diagnosis. With no clinical answers as to the cause of their deteriorating mental health, they have been thrown into a veteran’s health limbo. The analysis was based on an inductive logic. A key finding of the analysis was a kind of deep-seated permanent moral conflict that could be conceptualized as moral injury. Such an injury can give rise to intense guilt, shame, anxiety, anger, dejection, bitterness, identity issues and more. The results section of the article details five different yet for the sample representative cases of moral injury and their implications. The notion of moral injury is linked to Mead’s division of the self into an I and me, where me is the socially constructed part of the self that is charged with the morality of a group. Thus, a moral me played a key role in the development of moral injury. The conceptual apparatus illustrates a new way of understanding experiences that can create suffering and negatively impact a veteran’s mental health. Future research is encouraged that examines this topic, national designs for addressing moral injury, screening for moral injury, and methods for healing included.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moral injury: understanding Swedish veterans who are assessed but not diagnosed with PTSD

Grimell

2023

Front. Psychiatry

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…financial problems, finding a job, moving to a new area, loss of a social network) (Tsindeliani 2019), and subtle problems (e.g. biological, social, psychological, religious / spiritual) which military personnel are facing during their transition from a military context to a civilian one (Grimell 2019).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Former military personnel may feel constrained or abandoned, or even as if they are living in a state of oblivion after leaving their military communities and military comrades. Civil societies may have little or no interest, at least through the eyes of veterans, in full recognition and recognition of former military personnel for the sacrifices they made in the line of duty (Grimell 2019).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Features of Service Members' Adaptation to Civilian Life: Legal Aspects

Inshyn¹,

Bontlab²,

Sokolov³

et al. 2022

Int. J. Criminol. Sociol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The purpose of the study is to analyze the regulatory and legal support for the adaptation of service members to civilian life in the United States, France, and Germany to identify elements that could be useful for implementation in Ukrainian legislation. The 5 stages of adaptation that each service member goes through after completing his/her service when returning to civilian life are identified and analyzed. It is found that all analyzed countries begin the adaptation process several months (or years) before the end of service. In addition, former service members consistently receive financial assistance. The obtained results can be used by scientists for further analysis of regulatory and legal support and, on its basis, direct implementation of procedures for adaptation of service members to civilian life.

show abstract

“…however, this term is meaningful for the case under analysis. This is because the 'internal limbo' may be a context-related category indicating: (1) specific traumatising circumstances seen from the perspective of the subject, under which the absence of mental/emotional well-being may show or even be initiated; (2) moral injustice understood as 'spiritual' rather than only psychological abuse (Grimell 2019), experienced by the immigrant as a result of their detention and stay in the GCF. What is more, it may be helpful for the understanding of the cases as a part of which the already mentioned adaptation (to relations) is questioned.…”

Section: 'External Limbo' -'Internal Limbo'mentioning

confidence: 99%

‘External Limbo’ – ‘Internal Limbo’. On the Detention of Immigrants in Polish Guarded Centres for Foreigners

Chwieduk

2022

Stud. Migr. Prz. Pol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

For immigrants, a disruption of their migration biography as a result of detention, waiting to be granted the status of a refugee/asylum seeker, is tantamount to being in a state of suspension. Relevant literature often metaphorically refers to this situation as a state of ‘limbo’. In my article, I refer it to the institutional dimension of the total reality of the Guarded Centres for Foreigners (GCFs), calling it an ‘external limbo’ in which the individual is reduced to the rules of the controlling system. This situation evokes a state of alienation in the subject (immigrant in the role of a subordinate), who is strictly dependant on the officers (personnel) supervising their functioning. In effect, such conditions lead to different adaptation attitudes of the people detained in the GCFs, but above all, they do not promote their mental well-being. I call this last dimension of one’s stay at the GCF an ‘internal limbo’. My reflections are concentrated on an analysis of official documents describing events concerning a young Woman detained in one of the six GCFs in Poland. I treat this material as an exploratoryexplanative case study on the topic of the attitude of detention institutions to persons ‘in a mental/ emotional crisis’ and I ask about the ‘external limbo’ as understood in psychiatric anthropology, focusing on sociocultural conditions legitimising institutional use of disciplining practices in relation to the people the personnel of GCFs consider as ‘raising concern’. In my interpretation, I refer to the context of the functioning of the guarded centres as a total institution and the ‘economies of morality’ that are disclosed there. As a result, my goal is to indicate the characteristic manifestations of the ‘external limbo’, which may affect the condition of the ‘internal limbo’, and I progress towards reflection on the sense of detaining persons who pose no threat to their surroundings in the GCF, which is connected with an answer to the question concerning the manner of functioning of the guarded centres (in view of the welfare of all the people who stay there, not only immigrants).

show abstract

Revisiting Living in Limbo to Illustrate a Pastoral Psychological Understanding of Transition from Military to Civilian Life

Cited by 10 publications

References 27 publications

Moral injury: understanding Swedish veterans who are assessed but not diagnosed with PTSD

Moral injury: understanding Swedish veterans who are assessed but not diagnosed with PTSD

Features of Service Members' Adaptation to Civilian Life: Legal Aspects

‘External Limbo’ – ‘Internal Limbo’. On the Detention of Immigrants in Polish Guarded Centres for Foreigners

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About