Healing Beyond Medicine: Lived Experiences of Individuals Seeking Folk Healing in Kinabuhayan Dolores, Quezon Province

Abstract

Folk healing remains a significant component of health-seeking behavior in many Filipino communities, where spiritual beliefs, cultural traditions, and social relationships shape perception of illness and recovery anchored in Madeleine Leininger’s Transcultural Nursing Theory and Health Belief Model, which explains how beliefs influence health-related decisions, this study explored the lived experiences of individuals seeking folk healing in Kinabuhayan, Dolores, Quezon Province, a community known for its sacred healing traditions associated with Mt. Banahaw. A qualitative Hermeneutic Phenomenological design was utilized to capture the meaning of the participants attributed their healing joints. Twelve (12) adult participants aged thirty (30) years and above were selected through purposive sampling based on their direct experience with folk healing practices. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed using Max Van Manen’s phenomenological approach, employing holistic, selective, and detailed reading to interpret the essence of participants' narratives. Findings revealed that individuals were drawn to folk healing due to family traditions, economic barriers to biomedical care and chronic recurring illnesses, and spiritual beliefs regarding illness causation. Participants describe healing as a holistic experience and shaped by ritual practices, sacred landscape, and trusting healer-seeker relationships. Recovery was interpreted through embodied signs of improvement, renewed strong and strengthened faith rather than biomedical diagnosis. Participants also demonstrated a flexible approach to health-seeking by navigating between folk and biomedical systems. This study is limited by its sample size and focus on a single community which may limit transferability. Nevertheless, the findings contributed to a deeper understanding of culturally-grounded health practices and highlighted the importance of culturally-sensitive and holistic nursing care that respectfully bridges traditional and biomedical health systems.