Peer-reviewed article
Posttraumatic growth following culturally grounded intervention among tribal young women with dissociative disorders in Sikkim: an interpretative phenomenological analysis.
Singh D ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examined how three young tribal women from Sikkim recovered from trauma and dissociative disorders using a culturally adapted intervention combining breathing exercises, meditation, and music therapy. The women reported significant healing including emotional improvement and stronger sense of self, though they still faced ongoing social and cultural challenges. The research led to a new framework called TRIBE-HEAL designed for trauma recovery in tribal communities, but this framework has not yet been tested or validated beyond this small group.
Key points
- Participants experienced posttraumatic growth including emotional liberation, identity reconstruction, and increased concern for others
- Healing pathways were embodied and relational, involving breath work and music integrated with cultural and spiritual practices
- Recovery was non-linear with persistent sociocultural stressors and occasional relapse
- Existing Western trauma frameworks do not adequately account for the cultural, spiritual, and environmental realities of tribal communities
- The TRIBE-HEAL model addresses biopsychosocial-spiritual dimensions but requires independent validation before clinical use
Limitations
This is a very small qualitative study with only three participants, making it impossible to generalize findings to other tribal young women or settings. The study cannot establish whether the intervention caused the observed improvements, as there was no comparison group and the follow-up interviews occurred years after the intervention.
Abstract
Background Trauma recovery among tribal adolescent girls and young women in Northeast India remains poorly understood, particularly for those with dissociative disorders. Existing frameworks rely on Western paradigms that do not account for the cultural, spiritual, and environmental realities of tribal communities. Methods Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), this study examined the lived healing experiences of three young women from Sikkim who had completed a culturally grounded intervention comprising Pranayama, Ana Pana Sati meditation, and raga-based music therapy in 2022. Long-form semi-structured follow-up interviews were conducted in 2025. Results Analysis yielded four superordinate experiential domains: (1) Psychological and Emotional Transformation, (2) Sociocultural and Systemic Trauma Context, (3) Embodied and Relational Pathways to Healing, and (4) Non-Linear Recovery and Ongoing Vulnerability. Participants described significant posttraumatic growth including emotional liberation, identity reconstruction, and altruistic orientation, alongside persistent sociocultural stressors and episodic relapse. Conclusion These findings informed the TRIBE-HEAL model (Trauma Resilience Integration using Breathwork and Expressive Healing Approaches in Local contexts), a culturally grounded trauma-recovery framework addressing the biopsychosocial-spiritual dimensions of healing in marginalized tribal settings. TRIBE-HEAL is proposed as an exploratory, hypothesis-generating framework derived from a small idiographic sample; it has not been independently validated and requires further testing before clinical application.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Culturally grounded intervention comprising Pranayama (breathing exercises), Ana Pana Sati meditation, and raga-based music therapy
- Population
- Three tribal young women from Sikkim with dissociative disorders
Key finding
Participants described significant posttraumatic growth including emotional liberation, identity reconstruction, and altruistic orientation