Jonathan Shay

Jonathan Shay is a doctor and clinical psychiatrist. He holds a B.A from Harvard and an M.D. and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.

PTSD work with mainly-Vietnam Veterans

His early medical work was laboratory research on central nervous system cells in and after strokes, but after suffering a stroke himself and hard times thereafter, he joined United States Department of Veterans' Affairs outpatient clinic in Boston, MA.

While he worked there, in his words, "[t]he veterans simply kidnapped [him]," and his work with them "utterly redirected [his] life."

With this, in 1987, he shifted from neuropathology to the still-developing study of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). He has written two books on the nature and treatment of PTSD, Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character (ISBN 978-0-684-81321-9) and Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming (ISBN 978-0-7432-1157-4), which discuss the nature of the condition by reference to the experiences of American veterans of the Vietnam War, and the experiences depicted in the Iliad and the Odyssey.

He is a passionate advocate of improved mental health treatment for soldiers, and more vigorous effort to prevent PTSD, and has cited classical Greek theater and the collective mourning described in the Iliad as possible precedents. He writes of "the communalization of trauma."

View That PTSD is an Injury Not a Disorder

Shay writes, For years I have agitated aginst the diagnostic jargon, Post-Tramuatic Stress Disorder because transparently we are dealing with an injury, not an illness, malady, disease, sickness, or disorder. And argues further for Injury conception in:

Journal: Daedelus: The Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Title: Casulties Date: Summer 2011 Volume: 140 (3) Pages: 179-188

Career Recognition

He is respected in military circles, performing the Commandant of the Marine Corps Trust Study; serving as Visiting Scholar-at-Large at the U.S. Naval War College; Chair of Ethics, Leadership, and Personnel Policy in the Office of the U.S. Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel; and 2008-09 Omar Bradley Chair of Strategic Leadership at the US Army War College and Dickinson College. and has received a Macarthur "Genius Grant" fellowship in 2007 to further support his work.

Advocacy of Moral Injury as a Recognized Psychologic Condition

He introduced the concept of Moral Injury and necessary treatment strategies to repair it in his two books. Moral injury is a distinct syndrome from (but often co-morbid) with PTSD and is one of the primary themes for the veterans described in his books Achilles in Vietnam and Odysseus in America leading to personality changes ruinous to the veterans and obstructing acquisition and maintenance of successful treatment

Moral Injury Defined

In his Daedelus Article Casulties, he writes that his current most precise (and narrow) definition has three parts. Moral injury is present when (1) there has been a betrayal of what's right (2) by someone who holds legitimate authority (3) in a high-stakes situation. Factor (2) is an instance of Shay's concept of Leadership Malpractice. Shay indicates other authors have alternative definitions where (2) is by the self.

Journal: Daedelus: The Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Title: Casulties Date: Summer 2011 Volume: 140 (3) Pages: 179-188