Posttraumatic growth following culturally grounded intervention among tribal young women with dissociative disorders in Sikkim: an interpretative phenomenological analysis

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.