Service in the Australian Army involves evolving psychological contracts shaped by expectations that often begin well before enlistment. These expectations—spanning transactional, relational, and ideological domains—reflect what individuals believe they will receive in exchange for their service, including loyalty, ethical leadership, and institutional care. When these expectations are violated, particularly during moments of vulnerability or transition, they can lead to significant psychological and moral distress.
This thesis argues that psychological injury is best understood through a life-cycle approach that considers how expectations are formed, shift, and are violated across time—not just at the point of clinical presentation. Many clinicians focus on the immediate cause of distress, such as trauma or discharge events, but this study shows that long-standing, unmet expectations often play a foundational role in the development of psychological harm. By tracing the evolution of these expectations from recruitment through service and into post-military life, we gain a deeper understanding of how psychological contracts are tested and broken.
Drawing on psychological contract theory, institutional betrayal, and moral injury, the study uses Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis of interviews with seven former Army personnel. Findings reveal that ideological violations — such as failures of leadership, ethical inconsistency, and symbolic exclusion — are especially damaging, often intersecting with institutional betrayal and culminating in ‘betrayal-by-systems’ moral injury. These violations are not isolated incidents but cumulative and relational, unfolding across the service life cycle and shaping veterans’ emotional, moral, and identity-related experiences.
In response, the thesis proposes ‘expectation-informed care’: a clinical framework that encourages practitioners to explore the emotional and moral impact of unmet expectations across the service life cycle. This approach moves beyond trauma-centric models and offers a more ethically attuned, context-sensitive pathway for supporting veteran mental health. It calls for therapeutic practices that validate veterans’ experiences of relational and moral harm, foster trust, and engage meaningfully with the values and beliefs that shaped their service journey.