As both a practising vet and counsellor, I understand moral injury not only professionally, but personally; I’ve encountered it from both sides of the therapy room.
Moral injury is now well-recognised within the veterinary profession and has been shown to lead to a cascade of deleterious processes and outcomes including emotional anguish, distress, reduced patient care, and attrition from both the workplace and workforce (Montoya et al., 2025). Research suggests that veterinary staff are regularly exposed to situations that conflict with their values: euthanising healthy animals, providing treatment they believe is futile, being unable to treat because of cost, or feeling unsupported by colleagues or management (Williamson, Murphy and Greenberg, 2022).
In one US survey, over half of small animal veterinarians reported facing ethical dilemmas between the interests of the client and the animal at least weekly (Kipperman, Morris and Rollin, 2018).
The experiences most commonly linked with moral injury in veterinary work include:
- euthanasia because treatment is unaffordable
- continuing treatment that no longer improves quality of life
- pressure from owners or management that compromises care
- witnessing neglect or suffering but feeling powerless to prevent it
- bullying or betrayal by trusted colleagues.
Williamson and co-workers (2022) found that within UK veterinarians these experiences often leave people carrying guilt, shame, anger, loss of confidence and a sense of having become disconnected from themselves or from the work they once loved. Moral injury is distinct from burnout: burnout is about exhaustion, whereas moral injury is about feeling that something important inside you has been violated.
As one veterinary professional described in an online discussion, moral injury comes from “being unable to do what our moral compass tells us is right.” Others described becoming numb or detached over time as a way of coping.
Counselling literature often describes this as incongruence: a gap between who we are, what we value, and the role we feel forced to play (McLeod, 2025). Carl Rogers, the father of person-centred therapy, suggested that when we repeatedly act in ways that conflict with our deeper sense of self, it creates psychological tension. Over time, this can lead to anxiety, shame, anger, emotional numbness, or the sense of “performing” rather than genuinely living. In veterinary work, this may happen when professionals feel compelled to make decisions that go against their values in order to satisfy financial pressures, client expectations or workplace culture.
Therapy can help by providing a space to process grief, anger and self-blame, and to reconnect with what matters to us. It can help reduce that sense of inner conflict and move towards living and working in a way that feels more aligned. Although therapy cannot remove the realities of veterinary work, it can enable us to find a more sustainable way to remain in the profession without losing yourself within it.
Talk therapy cannot remove the realities of veterinary work. But research suggests that being able to speak openly about morally difficult experiences, rather than carrying them in silence, may reduce shame and help people reconnect with their values, boundaries and sense of professional identity. Therapy can offer a space to process grief, anger and self-blame, and to find a more sustainable way to remain in the profession without losing yourself within it.
Kipperman, B., Morris, P. and Rollin, B. (2018). Ethical dilemmas encountered by small animal veterinarians: characterisation, responses, consequences and beliefs regarding euthanasia. Veterinary Record, 182(19), pp.548–548. doi:https://doi.org/10.1136/vr.104619.
McLeod, S. (2025). Carl rogers humanistic theory and contribution to psychology. [online] Simply Psychology. Available at: https://www.simplypsychology.org/carl-rogers.html.
Montoya, A., Matthew, S., McArthur, M. and Jarden, A. (2025). Moral conflict and moral distress in veterinarians: a mixed‐methods approach. Australian Veterinary Journal. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/avj.13408.!
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