Brujería and counter-magic

Domain XI · Traditional medicine & indigenous healing · Latin America and Latinx communities

What it is

Brujería (Spanish: witchcraft or sorcery) is not a therapy and has no manual. It is a belief framework, found in many Latin American and Latinx communities, in which illness, distress, bad luck, relationship breakdown or money trouble may be attributed to harm deliberately sent by another person…

Format

• No phased protocol exists for working with brujería beliefs. The structure below is a clinical framework built around the CFI; the CFI itself has no fixed sessions.
• The CFI as the backbone. The core CFI has 16 questions in four domains: cultural definition of the problem; cultural perceptions of cause, context and support; cultural factors affecting self-coping and past help seeking; and cultural factors affecting current help seeking. APA describes it as…

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• What published research shows. An ethnographic study of botánicas (shops offering spiritual, healing and religious services, mainly to Latino and Caribbean customers in US cities, chiefly New York City) found that providers offer natural remedies such as herbs, informal counselling and religious ceremonies including prayer and ritual cleansing; providers mainly identified depression and nervios as what they treat,…
• Who holds authority. Whether any regulator, licensing body or official register exists for curanderismo or for brujería-related healing is. Recognition of a healer comes from clients, families and the healer's own religious or community networks. Some practitioners belong to religious traditions with their own houses, lineages or clergy (for example Afro-Caribbean religions or the Catholic Church), and each of those…

Evidence status, as the guide reports it

• Phase C: Treatment alongside the client's own help-seeking (length set by the presenting disorder). Goals: deliver the evidence-based treatment indicated for any disorder present; work on the stressors and relationships that the brujería account points to; coordinate with healers or clergy when the…

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Does it involve any substance, plant preparation, remedy or supplement? Has your doctor or prescriber been told, especially about any medication you take?
• Does it involve fasting, a special diet or 'detox'? Have you discussed this with your doctor?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• How do you and the practitioner understand what is happening, in spiritual or cultural terms? Is that a source of comfort, worry, or both?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• A family member using the session to accuse another; collusion with a harmful helper. Working signs: shared safety agreements, less blame.
• Interpreters who editorialise or show disbelief; brokers who hold strong views on who is to blame. Working signs: the client speaks more freely and uses their own terms.
• A carer who is not the parent, complex family structures; a child blamed for family misfortune. Working signs: child safe, scapegoating stopped, family engaged with services.
• Self-blame, fear of further sorcery, hypervigilance about the accusers; retraumatisation if pressed for details too early. Working signs: sleep, safety and social contact improving.
• Secrecy, loans, sold possessions, threats, and urgent deadlines. Working signs: the client feels free to pause payments and to seek a second opinion from someone their community trusts.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.