This book discusses posttraumatic stress. There are questions, clinical questions. Such as, “Does positive religious coping enhance resiliency?” Alternatively, “Can moral injury trigger posttraumatic symptoms?” Finally, “How do traumatized individuals make meaningful clinical improvements, or minimal important changes, on a therapeutic journey that embraces posttraumatic growth?”

Caregivers need clinical training, so they triage mental health problems in ways that promote posttraumatic growth. In this book, the concepts of moral injury, religious coping, and crisis intervention are discussed with the aim of equipping caregivers to engage mental health issues. A guiding light is personal pastoral experience as an emergency room chaplain.

Emergency room (ER) chaplains, along with other first responders, treat trauma patients before these patients are physically safe or have been medically cleared. Therefore, this book discusses trauma treatment in crisis situations, such as military deployment and drug dependency. Also, it discusses medical emergencies that involve gunshot wounds, blast injuries, and cases of chronic victimization, such as emotional abuse, child maltreatment, domestic violence, and deliberate self-harm. Hospital chaplains and other first responders need an array of empirically supported trauma treatments.

This book is a collection of case studies. Case study participants describe their “wild brain.” Each clinical interview is “wild,” because the conversations describe posttraumatic symptoms. This soldier said, “I had to kill the kid.” Then he discussed how other kids, about the same age, had lobbed hand grenades at him, fired rifles, detonated landmines, or triggered booby-traps. In Vietnam, kids fought as combatants. Therefore, he had to kill the kid. “Having to kill the kid,” or thinking that killing the kid in combat was necessary, exemplifies the distress and disorientation of moral injury.