The impact of natural disasters on survivors has been a thrust area in psychological research since the early twentieth century. However, the discipline's strong adberence to a set of "scientific" methods has rendered the research in this area also to be acultural, ahistorical and apclitical through the use of the diagnostic category, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A culture sensitive study of the impact of the carthquake that hit Kachchh district in January 2001 has been going on. This study provides an account of the socio-historically rooted suffering and bealing of the survivors over a period of 2 years in post-carthquake Kachchh. An ethnographic approach was adopted which provided the methodological flexibility to incorporate the changing socioeconomic context and its impact on the suffering and healing processes. The paper also sensitises one to the issues of the healing process that is under threat as the social support networks have been devastated by the dynamic socioeconomic forces.
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