Morgan Leona, Nadar Sarojini, Keygnaert Ines
University of the Western Cape, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Affiliated to the Desmond Tutu South African Research Chair Initiative (SARChI) in Religion and Social Justice, Cape Town, South Africa.
Ghent University, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, International Centre for Reproductive Health (ICRH) and VIORESC, Ghent, Belgium.
Eur J Psychotraumatol. 2025 Dec;16(1):2510020. doi: 10.1080/20008066.2025.2510020. Epub 2025 Jun 17.
: Research has demonstrated that the verbal disclosure for adult victims of childhood sexual trauma (CST) presents significant challenges and seldom provides comprehensive trauma integration. Limited psychosocial support and specialist trauma care particularly in marginalised communities, can further exacerbate the non-disclosure of CST. Although various intervention models for adult victims of CST exist, the potential of facilitating integrative silence as part of community centred integrative trauma informed care (ITIC), remains under-explored.: The objective of this article, is to document how facilitating spaces of integrative silence in a therapeutic context, shifts embodied trauma awareness, comprehensive trauma realisation and trauma integration for adult victims of CST from intergenerational marginalised contexts.: Through participatory action research (PAR), framed in de-colonial feminist community praxis with 13 women aged 21-62, the first author as therapist-researcher facilitated audio-visual recorded semi-structured interviews ( = 13) and integrative trauma informed care (ITIC) follow-up sessions ( = 60) to assess the value of the spoken, unspoken and silence in trauma care. Inductive reflexive thematic analysis and a multistage recursive coding process of verbatim transcriptions, were used to identify embodied trauma awareness before, during, and after periods of silence.: The de-colonial, feminist framing for community centred ITIC enhanced participant-specific embodied awareness, establishing a safe space for self-reflection. Contextual sensitivity and careful attention to the therapeutic environment were paramount. The facilitation of non-verbal expression empowered participants to explore alternatives to normative, essentialist and religious narratives that often stigmatise trauma responses. This approach enabled participants to reclaim a sense of agency, improving self-regulation and self-care.: This study highlights the potential of integrative silence in community based therapeutic contexts. Future research could explore the role of integrative silence in treating various forms of trauma in different cultural and geographic settings and its integration with other therapeutic modalities to enhance culturally sensitive mental health care.
研究表明，童年性创伤（CST）成年受害者的言语披露面临重大挑战，很少能实现全面的创伤整合。有限的社会心理支持和专业创伤护理，尤其是在边缘化社区，会进一步加剧CST的未披露情况。尽管存在针对CST成年受害者的各种干预模式，但作为以社区为中心的综合创伤知情护理（ITIC）一部分的促进整合性沉默的潜力仍未得到充分探索。
本文的目的是记录在治疗背景下促进整合性沉默空间如何改变来自代际边缘化背景的CST成年受害者的身体创伤意识、全面创伤认知和创伤整合。
通过参与式行动研究（PAR），以去殖民化女权主义社区实践为框架，与13名年龄在21至62岁之间的女性合作，第一作者作为治疗师 - 研究者进行了视听记录的半结构化访谈（n = 13）和综合创伤知情护理（ITIC）后续会议（n = 60），以评估言语、非言语和沉默在创伤护理中的价值。使用归纳反思主题分析和逐字记录的多阶段递归编码过程，来识别沉默期之前、期间和之后的身体创伤意识。
以社区为中心的ITIC的去殖民化、女权主义框架增强了参与者特定的身体意识，建立了一个自我反思的安全空间。情境敏感性和对治疗环境的仔细关注至关重要。促进非言语表达使参与者能够探索替代那些常常污名化创伤反应的规范、本质主义和宗教叙事的方式。这种方法使参与者能够重新获得一种能动性，改善自我调节和自我护理。
本研究强调了整合性沉默在基于社区的治疗背景中的潜力。未来的研究可以探索整合性沉默在不同文化和地理环境中治疗各种形式创伤的作用，以及它与其他治疗方式的整合，以加强对文化敏感的心理健康护理。
