Between my private practice and my 11 years as a VA clinical psychologist, I have provided care to firefighters, paramedics, law enforcement, former Army Rangers and Navy Seals, as well as employees of the State Department and other government agencies. Many are returning veterans from the watershed events of the Vietnam War and September 11th. I have also worked with civilians struggling with the effects of trauma or other life experiences more broadly. I am well versed in evidence-based therapies for PTSD, (PE, CPT, NET), and I also use a humanistic and strengths-based approach in which psychological distress may be seen as a marker of conscience and of moral values, rather than as a psychological problem in need of “treatment.” The cost of public service – military, government, emergency personnel – can reduce your sense of connection to the people around you. Requirements of discretion or secrecy can widen the “experience gap” that threatens your connection to family and friends. And with each homecoming – after a day on the street, or months overseas – you can steadily lose your place in a society that seems focused on what no longer matters to you. Meanwhile, a sense of debt to those that were there for you, and a fear of what might happen to colleagues if you quit, make the work inescapable and sometimes unending. Looking back, it can feel like you have made a sacrifice to a country in which you no longer belong. That somehow the more you give, the less you belong here. What is the emotional price of leaving your family for “work”, and knowing your return is not certain? How do you reconcile lives not saved with your promise to leave no one behind? How do you deal with the possibility of guilt for actions taken or not taken? The right therapeutic process can assist in recovery from emotional distress, trauma, and moral injury. Psychotherapy can start a process of healing and recovery.