Swedish Veterans of Foreign Conflicts and Veteran Health Limbo

Jan Grimell

doi:10.21061/jvs.v10i2.467

Swedish Veterans of Foreign Conflicts and Veteran Health Limbo

Journal of Veterans Studies

Volume 10 (2024): Issue 2

By: Jan Grimell

Open Access

|Apr 2024

Abstract

This article describes the mental health of Swedish veterans of foreign conflicts with a focus on Veteran Health Limbo, which is also the name of an ongoing research project. Veteran Health Limbo refers to those veterans of foreign conflicts whose mental health is suffering, but who do not meet the criteria for clinical PTSD. The term limbo is used because the veterans are in between two health poles: a balanced well-being and a clinically diagnosable deterioration in mental health. Up to half of the patients at the veteran clinic in Sweden belong to this group. The concept of moral injury is a potential lens for understanding a decline in mental health that is not clinical and pathological. This article discusses this in a Swedish context.

References

Abrahamsson, B. (2010). Core values and the military recipe for success: The house that Clausewitz built. Försvarshögskolan.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Agrell, W. (2013). A war here and now: Sweden’s path to armed conflict in Afghanistan. Bokförlaget Atlantis.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Atuel, H. R., Barr, N., Jones, E., Greenberg, N., Williamson, V., Schumacher, M. R., Vermetten, E., Jetly, R., & Castro, C. A. (2021). Understanding moral injury from a character domain perspective. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 41(3), 155–173. DOI: 10.1080/21635781.2020.1753604
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Atuel, H. R., Chesnut, R., Richardson, C., Perkins, D., & Castro, C. (2020). Exploring moral injury: Theory, measurement, and applications. Military Behavioral Health, 1–8. DOI: 10.1080/21635781.2020.1753604
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Aux Analysis AB. (2017). Follow-up of Swedish military veterans of foreign conflicts after returning home (Annual report 2017: mental illness).
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Aux Analysis AB. (2021). Follow-up of Swedish military veterans of foreign conflicts after returning home. https://www.auxmilitary.se/material/fysisk_ohalsa.pdf
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Aux Analysis AB. (2022). Annual register follow-up of Swedish military veterans of foreign conflicts. Received from https://www.auxmilitary.se/ (2022-08-30)
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Barr, N., Atuel, H., Saba, S., & Castro, C. (2022). Toward a dual process of moral injury and traumatic illness. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 13, 1–11. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.883338
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Grimell, J. (2018). Reconsidering the uniform: Existential and religious identity reconstruction among Swedes after military service. LIT Verlag.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Grimell, J. (2021a). Uniforms, identities and military chaplains: An interview study of experiences from pastors providing military spiritual care within the Swedish Armed Forces. Artos. DOI: 10.1080/08854726.2020.1796077
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Grimell, J. (2021b). The invisible wounded warriors in a nation at peace: An interview study on the lives of Swedish veterans of foreign conflicts and their experiences with PTSD, moral injuries, and military identities. Artos.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Grimell, J. (2022a). The invisible wounded warriors in a nation at peace: An interview study on the lives of Swedish veterans of foreign conflicts and their experiences with PTSD, moral injuries, and military identities. Lit Verlag.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Grimell, J. (2022b). After so much is invested in creating robust military identities, what about the construction of fulfilling civilian identities after service? In D. Schmidt Wortmeyer (Ed.), Deep loyalties: Values in military lives (pp. 191–210). Information Age Publishing.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Grimell, J., & Nilsson, S. (2020). An advanced perspective on moral challenges and their health-related outcomes through an integration of the moral distress and moral injury theories. Military Psychology, 32(6), 380–388. DOI: 10.1080/08995605.2020.1794478
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Koenig, H. G., Boucher, N. A., Oliver, J. P., Youssef, N., Mooney, S. R., Currier, J. M., & Pearce, M. (2017). Rationale for spiritually oriented cognitive processing therapy for moral injury in active duty military and veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 205(2), 147–153. DOI: 10.1097/NMD.0000000000000554
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Larsson, G. (2019). Mental health problems following military missions: Veterans’ experiences of the quality of care. Archives of Women Health and Care, 2(5), 1–2.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Litz, B., Lebowitz, L., Gray, M., & Nash, W. (2017). Adaptive disclosure: A new treatment for military trauma, loss, and moral injury. Guilford Press.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Litz, B., Plouffe, R., Nazarov, A., Murphy, D., Phelps, A., Coady, A., Houle, S., Dell, L., Frankfurt, S., Zerach, G., & Levi-Belz, Y. (2022). Defining and assessing the syndrome of moral injury: Initial findings of the Moral Injury Outcome Scale Consortium. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 13, Article 923928. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.923928
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Litz, B., Stein, N., Delaney, E., Lebowitz, L., Nash, W., Silva, C., & Maguen, S. (2009). Moral injury and moral repair in war veterans: A preliminary model and intervention strategy. Clinical Psychology Review, 29(8), 695–706. DOI: 10.1016/j.cpr.2009.07.003
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Meyer, E., Walser, R., Hermann, B., La Bash, H., DeBeer, B., Morissette, S., Kimbrel, N., Kwok, O-I., Batten, S., & Schnurr, P. (2018). Acceptance and commitment therapy for co-occurring posttraumatic stress disorder and alcohol use disorders in veterans: Pilot treatment outcomes. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 315, 781–789. DOI: 10.1002/jts.22322
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Shay, J., & Munroe, J. (1998). Group and milieu therapy for veterans with complex posttraumatic stress disorder. In P. A. Saigh & J. D. Bremner (Eds.), Posttraumatic stress disorder: A comprehensive text (pp. 391–413). Allyn & Bacon.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Smith-MacDonald, L. A., Morin, J-S., & Brémault-Phillips, S. (2018). Spiritual dimensions of moral injury: Contributions of mental health chaplains in the Canadian Armed Forces. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 9, Article 592, 1–7. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00592
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Sundevall, F. (2011). Det sista manliga yrkesmonopolet: genus och militärt arbete i Sverige 1865–1989. Makadam Förlag.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Swedish Armed Forces. (2022a). Veterans of foreign conflicts in numbers. https://www.forsvarsmakten.se/sv/utlandsveteraner-och-anhoriga/for-utlandsveteraner/utlandsveteraner-i-siffror/
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Swedish Armed Forces. (2022b). Veteran definitions. https://www.forsvarsmakten.se/sv/utlandsveteraner-och-anhoriga
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
The Veteran Clinic. (2022). The Veteran Clinic’s Website. https://www.1177.se/Vasternorrland/hitta-vard/kontaktkort/Veteranmottagningen-Uppsala/
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Uppsala University, Welfare Research Group, Project Description of the Veteran Health Limbo. (2021). https://www.soc.uu.se/forskning/forskargrupper/valfard/vard-och-social-omsorg/fordjupad-forstaelse-for-veteranhalsans-limbo-/
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Wortmann, J. H., Eisen, E., Hundert, C., Jordan, A. H., Smith, M. W., Nash, W. P., & Litz, B. (2017). Spiritual features of war-related moral injury: A primer for clinicians. Spirituality in Clinical Practice, 4(4), 249–261. DOI: 10.1037/scp0000140
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article