For a moment, Julia couldn’t speak. There was a lump in her throat, and she thought she might cry. She’d expected the doctor to chastise her for not knowing her husband. She’d expected the doctor to judge her for never coming to the hospital, even though she’d been told to stay away. She hadn’t expected kindness.

The field of trauma psychology has recently articulated what it calls moral injury, a particular—and quite virulent—form of PTSD that assaults the psyche of the perpetrator.