Atlas›Domain XI · Traditional medicine & indigenous healing›Guide 127
Guide XI-127

Cunning folk

1500England and Wales
A 34 · L 54 · M 1212 interventions in the Trinity explorer
Client cardCompare
[source: …] where a claim comes from[uncertain] not confirmed in a primary source[synthesis] the writer's reconstruction

1. Introduction

Version followed: cunning folk as historians document them for England and Wales, chiefly Owen Davies (Cunning-Folk: Popular Magic in English History, Hambledon and London, 2003; paperback retitled Popular Magic: Cunning-folk in English History, Hambledon Continuum, 2007) and Davies's 1999 Medical History article, with the National Library of Wales for Welsh practice and Irish charming scholarship for the living charm tradition. The therapist's own work follows the DSM-5-TR Cultural Formulation Interview (CFI) and Kleinman's explanatory-model approach.

What it is. Cunning folk were paid, commercial practitioners of popular magic in Britain from at least the sixteenth into the early twentieth century. They went by many names: cunning man or woman, wise man or woman, conjuror, wizard, "white witch"; clients and practitioners did not always use the same label. [source: https://uhra.herts.ac.uk/id/eprint/3509/1/906672.pdf] Their services, as historians record them, were healing people and livestock, fortune-telling and astrology, identifying thieves and recovering lost or stolen property, love magic and, above all, the detection and cure of witchcraft ("unbewitching"). Davies calls the prevention, identification and curing of witchcraft their most important medical role. [source: https://uhra.herts.ac.uk/id/eprint/3509/1/906672.pdf] [source: https://decohen.com/reviews/cunning-folk-popular-magic-in-english-history/] They were distinct from charmers, who cured particular ailments, did not diagnose witchcraft and by custom took no cash. [source: https://uhra.herts.ac.uk/id/eprint/3509/1/906672.pdf]

This is not a therapy and not something a psychotherapist practises. It is a historical folk tradition. There is no living lineage, regulator or community council that holds authority over "cunning folk" today. Historically, authority rested on local reputation and clients' trust, not on any licence; church and state condemned or prosecuted the practice at various times. [source: https://www.library.wales/discover/digital-gallery/manuscripts/modern-period/john-harries-book-of-incantations/] [source: https://decohen.com/reviews/cunning-folk-popular-magic-in-english-history/]

Core idea of how change happened (as historians describe it, attributed). Within the belief system, misfortune, persistent illness or loss could have a hidden personal cause (often a witch's ill will), and the cunning person's work was to name that cause and counter it; Davies writes that belief in witchcraft was "the cement which held it together". [source: https://uhra.herts.ac.uk/id/eprint/3509/1/906672.pdf] Clients often came with persistent or puzzling conditions, including depression and "odd fits", frequently after doctors had failed. [source: https://uhra.herts.ac.uk/id/eprint/3509/1/906672.pdf] For the psychotherapist the relevant change process is your own: understanding a client's meaning-making about misfortune, ill-wishing, luck or inherited gifts, and working with it respectfully without either endorsing supernatural claims or dismissing them. [synthesis]

What remains today.

  • Historical practice declined in the early twentieth century with commercial medicines, the spread of orthodox medicine and reduced belief in witchcraft; Davies argues people made practical choices in a crowded medical market rather than consciously rejecting folk medicine. [source: https://uhra.herts.ac.uk/id/eprint/3509/1/906672.pdf] In Wales, the Harries family of Cwrt-y-cadno (John Harries, c.1785–1839) were physicians, surgeons, astrologers and cunning men; a son who died in 1863 is described as the last of the local cunning folk. [source: https://www.library.wales/discover/digital-gallery/manuscripts/modern-period/john-harries-book-of-incantations/]
  • Living charming: in Ireland charming is documented from medieval to modern times, including recent fieldwork with a contemporary healer (Carey, Ó Gealbháin, Tuomi and Hillers, eds, 2019). [source: https://www.uwp.co.uk/book/charms-charmers-and-charming-in-ireland] Charms are described here, never reproduced.
  • Modern reconstruction (label as such): some present-day witches and "traditional witchcraft" practitioners seek continuity or legitimacy through claimed ancestry in cunning folk; the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic (Boscastle, Cornwall) displays wise-woman material, though some of its founder's attributions are regarded as unreliable and there is "no archival evidence" for some claimed practices. [source: https://eprints-gro.gold.ac.uk/32003/1/accepted%20HC%20%2Bsensory%2Bmuseum%2BDEC%2B2021%2Bwith%2BFIGS%20.pdf] These are revivals and reconstructions, not an unbroken tradition. [uncertain: continuity claims are contested]
  • Commercial psychic and spiritual services today fall under consumer-protection law in England and Wales (see Framework). [source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraudulent_Mediums_Act_1951] [uncertain: secondary source]

2. Framework

This section has two parts: the historical structure of the practice (context only) and the therapist's own phased work.

A. The historical practice, as documented (context, not a procedure).

  • Who: mostly craftsmen, tradesmen or farmers (over 80% in Davies's sample, as a reviewer reports); at least semi-literate; urban as well as rural; women and men (hence "cunning-folk"). [source: https://decohen.com/reviews/cunning-folk-popular-magic-in-english-history/] Court records point to literate, book-owning artisans, often apprenticed, frequently working from the back room of a family business as a second income. [source: https://rakinglight.co.uk/book-reviews/popular-magic-cunning-folk-in-english-history/] Some were also high-street herbalists. [source: https://uhra.herts.ac.uk/id/eprint/3509/1/906672.pdf]
  • Consultation: a client brought a problem (illness, loss, theft, love, suspected bewitchment); the practitioner gave a diagnosis, often naming a hidden cause, and supplied remedies, which historians record as combining herbal medicines with written charms, talismans and rituals. Davies also documents some practitioners using informants to gather information about clients beforehand. Diagnostic and divinatory methods are not described here. [source: https://uhra.herts.ac.uk/id/eprint/3509/1/906672.pdf]
  • Fees: could be high, sometimes adjusted to the client's means; some earned as much as or more than local doctors. A Norfolk farmer is quoted: "We've spent every shilling to get remedy." [source: https://uhra.herts.ac.uk/id/eprint/3509/1/906672.pdf]
  • Legal frame: English Witchcraft Acts of 1542 (repealed 1547), 1562/63 and 1604; the 1736 Act replaced prosecution for witchcraft with fines or imprisonment for claiming magical powers; the 1824 Vagrancy Act penalised fortune-telling; the Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951 repealed the 1736 Act; the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 repealed the 1951 Act (from 26 May 2008) [uncertain: secondary source]. [source: https://libguides.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/law-witch/england] [source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraudulent_Mediums_Act_1951] In practice cunning folk were rarely prosecuted, and then mostly for fraud, false pretences, fortune-telling, illegal medical practice, manslaughter by poisonous herbal remedies, or procuring abortion, usually after client complaints. [source: https://uhra.herts.ac.uk/id/eprint/3509/1/906672.pdf] [source: https://decohen.com/reviews/cunning-folk-popular-magic-in-english-history/]

B. The psychotherapist's work alongside (phases). [synthesis, built on the CFI's stated uses]

  1. Engagement and cultural assessment (first 1–2 sessions). Goal: learn how the client names and explains the problem, including any consultation with charmers, psychics, "cunning" or traditional-witchcraft practitioners, or family remedies. Tool: core CFI (16 questions, four domains), which APA says can be used by any clinician in any setting and is not meant to be the sole basis for diagnosis. [source: https://www.psychiatry.org/File%20Library/Psychiatrists/Practice/DSM/DSM-5-TR/APA-DSM5TR-CulturalFormulationInterview.pdf] Time needed: the DSM-5 field trial found later interviews took less time; a figure in minutes is [uncertain: not verified]. Move on when you can state the client's explanatory model in their own words and they confirm it.
  2. Formulation and differential. Goal: separate culturally or spiritually normative belief (ill-wishing, luck, an inherited charming gift, a pagan or witchcraft identity) from delusion, OCD-type magical thinking, trauma or exploitation. Use supplementary modules and informants as needed. Move on when diagnosis (or no diagnosis) is agreed with the client's frame acknowledged.
  3. Collaboration decision. Goal: decide with the client whether any outside practitioner should be in the picture, and on what terms (consent, confidentiality, no delay of medical care). Move on when an agreed plan is written in the record.
  4. Ongoing work and integration. Usual-length sessions within whatever therapy the presenting problem needs; revisit modules later in care, which APA permits. [source: https://psychiatry.org/File%20Library/Psychiatrists/Practice/DSM/APA_DSM5_Cultural-Formulation-Interview-Supplementary-Modules.pdf]
  5. Safeguarding runs through every phase (financial exploitation, delayed medical care, harm to children linked to belief).

There is no session count for "cunning-folk work"; the length is set by the clinical problem. [synthesis]

3. Guiding principles

  • Write and speak about the tradition as historians document it. Practically: draw on scholarship, not popular or fictional images such as the illiterate crone, which a reviewer of Davies notes was largely propaganda and later fiction. [source: https://rakinglight.co.uk/book-reviews/popular-magic-cunning-folk-in-english-history/]
  • You are not a cunning person, charmer or psychic. Practically: never offer, imitate or recommend charms, divination, curse removal or "unwitching". [synthesis]
  • Attribute, neither affirm nor dismiss. Practically: say "in your understanding the trouble started when…" rather than agreeing a curse exists or calling it superstition. [synthesis]
  • Label revival as revival. Practically: respect a client's traditional-witchcraft or pagan identity while noting (to yourself and in records) that continuity with historical cunning folk is a modern claim. [source: https://eprints-gro.gold.ac.uk/32003/1/accepted%20HC%20%2Bsensory%2Bmuseum%2BDEC%2B2021%2Bwith%2BFIGS%20.pdf]
  • Respect living charm traditions without reproducing them. Practically: ask what a charmer means to the client; never ask for, record or repeat the words of a charm. [synthesis]
  • Use the CFI as an aid, not a verdict. Practically: it informs diagnosis and planning but is not the sole basis for a diagnosis. [source: https://www.psychiatry.org/File%20Library/Psychiatrists/Practice/DSM/DSM-5-TR/APA-DSM5TR-CulturalFormulationInterview.pdf]
  • Normative belief is not psychosis; illness is not culture. Practically: check with family or community informants before treating a shared belief as delusional, and do not let a cultural frame hide a mental or physical illness. [synthesis] (A DSM-5-TR note on culturally sanctioned beliefs versus delusions is [uncertain: not verified].)
  • History shows people combined help sources. Practically: expect clients to use doctors, therapy and folk or spiritual help side by side; ask about all of them. Davies found clients often turned to cunning folk after doctors failed. [source: https://uhra.herts.ac.uk/id/eprint/3509/1/906672.pdf]
  • Money and dependency are clinical information. Practically: ask about fees paid to any spiritual service; escalating payments for curse removal are an exploitation risk. [synthesis, informed by the historical fee record: source: https://uhra.herts.ac.uk/id/eprint/3509/1/906672.pdf]
  • Never advise on medicines or herbal remedies. Practically: route any question about herbs, supplements or stopping medication to the prescriber or GP. Historically, poisonous herbal remedies led to manslaughter prosecutions. [source: https://uhra.herts.ac.uk/id/eprint/3509/1/906672.pdf]
  • No practice treats physical disease here. Practically: encourage medical assessment for physical symptoms, whatever else the client does. [synthesis]
  • Safeguarding overrides cultural deference. Practically: belief in witchcraft or possession can lead to children being blamed and abused; follow child-protection procedures. [source: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-action-plan-to-tackle-child-abuse-linked-to-faith-or-belief]
  • Consent, confidentiality and client choice govern any collaboration. Practically: contact an outside practitioner only with written consent and only if the client wants it. [synthesis]
  • Touch: none is involved in this work; if a client reports hands-on treatment by any practitioner, consent and safety apply as for any physical practice, and any sexual or intimate contact is a safeguarding matter. [synthesis]

4. Intervention inventory

These are the psychotherapist's own interventions for clients whose distress, identity or help-seeking involves folk magic, charming, ill-wishing or a modern cunning-craft or traditional-witchcraft identity. None of them reproduces or imitates the tradition. Example language is illustrative unless quoted.

4.1 Cultural humility and self-examination

  • Purpose / when: before and during work with any client who mentions curses, luck, charmers, wise women or witchcraft; British clinicians may carry inherited images (the "crone", the fraud, the quaint rural relic) that historians reject. [source: https://rakinglight.co.uk/book-reviews/popular-magic-cunning-folk-in-english-history/] [synthesis]
  • Steps: (1) Notice your first reaction (amusement, alarm, fascination, scepticism). (2) Ask whether it is about the client or about your own beliefs. (3) Remind yourself that folk and orthodox help-seeking have long sat side by side. (4) Take unresolved reactions to supervision. [synthesis]
  • Example language (self-talk, illustrative): "Am I hearing 'superstition' or 'risk' here, and which is actually in front of me?"
  • Watch for: joking, over-interest in exotic detail, or rushing to a psychotic label; working well when you can describe the client's view in terms they would accept.

4.2 Core Cultural Formulation Interview (CFI)

  • Purpose / when: at intake or whenever the client's account involves a hidden or personal cause of misfortune, or folk or spiritual help. Sixteen questions in four domains: cultural definition of the problem; perceived causes, stressors, supports and cultural identity; self-coping and past help-seeking (including barriers); current help-seeking preferences and the clinician–patient relationship. [source: https://www.psychiatry.org/File%20Library/Psychiatrists/Practice/DSM/DSM-5-TR/APA-DSM5TR-CulturalFormulationInterview.pdf]
  • Steps: (1) Explain you want to understand the problem as the client sees it. (2) Work through the four domains using the APA form (clinicians may reproduce it for use with their own patients; adaptation or translation needs APA permission). [source: https://www.psychiatry.org/File%20Library/Psychiatrists/Practice/DSM/DSM-5-TR/APA-DSM5TR-CulturalFormulationInterview.pdf] (3) In past help-seeking, ask explicitly about charmers, psychics, healers and family remedies. (4) Summarise back. (5) Record the client's own terms.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Some people, as well as seeing a doctor, go to someone who charms, reads, or deals with bad luck or ill-wishing. Has anyone like that helped you, or tried to?"
  • Watch for: guarded answers suggest the client expects ridicule; working when the client volunteers more detail and corrects your summary.

4.3 CFI Informant Version

  • Purpose / when: when a family member shares or disputes the belief, or the client cannot give a clear account; 17 questions, starting with the informant's relationship to the client. [source: https://psychiatry.org/File%20Library/Psychiatrists/Practice/DSM/APA_DSM5_Cultural-Formulation-Interview-Informant.pdf]
  • Steps: (1) Get the client's consent to speak with the informant. (2) Use the form's domains. (3) Compare accounts: is the belief shared in the family or community, or held only by the client? [synthesis]
  • Example language (illustrative): "In your family, how do people usually understand a run of bad luck or an illness like this?"
  • Watch for: informants with a stake (for example an accuser in a family dispute); working when you can say whether the belief is collectively held.

4.4 Supplementary modules: Spirituality, Religion and Moral Traditions; Explanatory Model; Coping and Help-Seeking; Cultural Identity

  • Purpose / when: for depth when the core CFI shows that spirituality, folk practice or a witchcraft or pagan identity is central; modules can be used as add-ons or standalone, at first evaluation or repeatedly in care. [source: https://psychiatry.org/File%20Library/Psychiatrists/Practice/DSM/APA_DSM5_Cultural-Formulation-Interview-Supplementary-Modules.pdf]
  • Steps: (1) Choose the module the core CFI flags. (2) Use it in a later session if the first is full. (3) Note the client's affiliations (church, coven, pagan group, family charming tradition) and how they help or hurt. [synthesis on the content to note]
  • Example language (illustrative): "You've said you're part of a traditional craft group. What does belonging to it give you, and has it ever made things harder?"
  • Watch for: identity material that is a source of strength being read as pathology; working when the client sees their identity reflected accurately in the formulation.

4.5 Kleinman explanatory-model questions

  • Purpose / when: a compact way to elicit the client's model, from Kleinman, Eisenberg and Good (1978). Eight questions, paraphrased: what the client calls the problem; what caused it; why it started when it did; what it does and how it works; how severe it is and whether it will last; what treatment the client should receive; the chief problems it has caused; what the client fears most. [source: https://tanenbaum.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/HANDOUT-Explanatory-Models-of-Illness.pdf] [source: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/F99D9D36838A8207D377730DEB445F7B/core-reader]
  • Steps: (1) Ask conversationally, not as a checklist. (2) Note where the model includes a personal agent (an ill-wisher). (3) Find shared ground for treatment goals (sleep, fear, relationships).
  • Example language (illustrative): "Why do you think it started when it did, rather than earlier or later?" / "What do you fear most about it?"
  • Watch for: a model naming a specific person as the cause of harm, which can escalate into conflict or accusation; working when goals can be phrased in both frames.

4.6 Distinguishing normative belief from illness

  • Purpose / when: when a client believes they are cursed, ill-wished, bewitched, or that they themselves have power to harm or heal. ICD-11 trance and possession trance disorders (6B62, 6B63) require states that are involuntary, unwanted and not part of accepted cultural or religious practice; DSM-5-TR dissociative diagnoses keep a similar exclusion in substance. [source: https://www.findacode.com/icd-11/code-1807490186.html] [source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9199574] [source: https://umsystem.pressbooks.pub/aswbprep/?p=1299] Most ill-wishing beliefs will not involve trance at all; the question is usually belief versus delusion, overvalued idea or OCD-type magical thinking. [synthesis]
  • Steps: (1) Establish whether the belief is shared by the client's family, group or community (4.3). (2) Check fixity, bizarreness relative to that shared frame, spread to new people, and accompanying features (hallucinations, thought disorder, mood change, loss of function). (3) For a client who fears their own thoughts or wishes can harm others, screen for OCD. (4) Consult a cultural broker, faith or group leader, or a folklore-informed colleague, with consent, if unsure. (5) Formulate in both frames. [synthesis]
  • Example language (illustrative): "Lots of people in your community talk about ill-wishing. What's different about how it feels to you now compared with how others talk about it?"
  • Watch for: both errors: labelling a shared folk or pagan belief as psychosis, and accepting "it's just a curse" while missing depression, psychosis or physical illness; working when the differential is documented with reasons.

4.7 Exploring the client's charming or cunning-craft heritage or identity

  • Purpose / when: when a client belongs to a family that "has the cure", consults a charmer, or identifies with modern traditional witchcraft or cunning-craft revival. Irish charming is documented as a living practice. [source: https://www.uwp.co.uk/book/charms-charmers-and-charming-in-ireland] Modern claims of descent from cunning folk are a revival. [source: https://eprints-gro.gold.ac.uk/32003/1/accepted%20HC%20%2Bsensory%2Bmuseum%2BDEC%2B2021%2Bwith%2BFIGS%20.pdf]
  • Steps: (1) Ask what the identity or practice means and what role it gives the client. (2) Do not ask for charm words, methods or ritual detail; if offered, do not record them. (3) Explore pressures: secrecy, family expectations, being sought out for help, guilt when a cure "fails". (4) Treat historical accuracy as the client's business unless it bears on distress. [synthesis]
  • Example language (illustrative): "You don't need to tell me anything about how it's done. I'm more interested in what it's like for you to be the person people come to."
  • Watch for: burden, overresponsibility or scrupulosity in clients who help others; working when the client speaks of the role with both pride and limits.

4.8 Asking about outside practitioners without judgement, and checking money and dependency

  • Purpose / when: whenever a client consults a psychic, curse-remover, charmer or spiritual practitioner. Historically cunning folk could charge high fees and clients sometimes spent heavily; prosecutions mostly followed client complaints about fraud or false pretences. [source: https://uhra.herts.ac.uk/id/eprint/3509/1/906672.pdf] [source: https://decohen.com/reviews/cunning-folk-popular-magic-in-english-history/] Today commercial psychic services in England and Wales fall under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. [source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraudulent_Mediums_Act_1951] [uncertain: secondary source]
  • Steps: (1) Ask neutrally what the practitioner offered and what the client felt afterwards. (2) Ask about cost, frequency and any pressure ("the curse will get worse unless…"). (3) Distinguish a single valued consultation or an unpaid family charmer from escalating paid "removals". (4) If exploitation is likely, support the client to consider consumer advice or Trading Standards; whether a specific practice breaches the law is for those bodies, not for you. [synthesis]
  • Example language (illustrative): "It sounds like the reading helped you feel less alone with it. Can I ask what it has cost so far, and whether you've been told you need to keep going back?"
  • Watch for: secrecy from family, debt, fear-based messages, isolation from other help; working when the client can weigh the service as a consumer while keeping their beliefs.

4.9 Collaboration with a charmer, spiritual practitioner or faith leader (client-led)

  • Purpose / when: only when the client wants their helper involved or wants care coordinated. There is no UK programme for this; the trial evidence on collaboration comes from very different settings: in Nigeria and Ghana, collaborative shared care between traditional and faith healers and primary care (COSIMPO; Gureje et al., The Lancet, 2020) reduced psychotic symptoms more than usual care and reduced harmful practices; in a Ghanaian prayer camp (Ofori-Atta et al., Br J Psychiatry 212(1)) adding psychiatric medication reduced symptoms but did not significantly reduce days in chains. [source: https://pubannotation.org/docs/sourcedb/PubMed/sourceid/32861306] [source: https://centreforglobalmentalhealth.org/node/839] [source: https://www.mentalhealthdataprizeafrica.aphrc.org/repository/paper/33405/joining-psychiatric-care-and-faith-healing-in-a-prayer-camp-in-ghana-randomised-trial] WHO's 2014–2023 strategy frames traditional and complementary medicine within safe, regulated health systems. [source: https://www.who.int/activities/implementation-of-the-WHO-traditional-medicine-strategy-2014-2023]
  • Steps: (1) Clarify what the client hopes collaboration will achieve. (2) Get written consent stating what may be shared. (3) Keep contact to coordination (timing, safety, not delaying medical care); do not endorse methods or claims. (4) Agree that no outside practice will replace medical assessment or prescribed treatment. (5) Review after contact. [synthesis]
  • Example language (illustrative): "If you'd like, with your permission, I can let them know you're also working with me and that your GP is looking at the physical side. I won't be commenting on what they do."
  • Watch for: pressure to stop medication, the helper discouraging therapy, confidentiality slips; working when the client experiences help as joined up rather than competing.

4.10 Medical care and herbal remedies: routing, not advising

  • Purpose / when: when a client uses herbal remedies from any folk or alternative source, or considers stopping medicine because a curse or charm explains the illness. Historically, poisonous herbal remedies supplied by cunning folk led to manslaughter prosecutions. [source: https://uhra.herts.ac.uk/id/eprint/3509/1/906672.pdf]
  • Steps: (1) Note what is being taken without judging it. (2) Do not advise starting, stopping or combining anything. (3) Ask the client's consent to inform the prescriber or GP, or encourage the client to tell them. (4) Encourage medical assessment of physical symptoms. [synthesis]
  • Example language (illustrative): "That's a question for your GP or pharmacist, because some remedies interact with medicines. Would you be OK with me letting your GP know you're taking it?"
  • Watch for: delayed medical care, new physical symptoms; working when the prescriber is informed.

4.11 Safeguarding where belief drives harm

  • Purpose / when: belief in witchcraft, spirit possession or other supernatural ideas can lead to children being blamed for misfortune and abused, and fear of the supernatural can be used to coerce compliance in trafficking or exploitation (DfE national action plan, 2012, England). [source: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-action-plan-to-tackle-child-abuse-linked-to-faith-or-belief] Adults can also be targeted by accusation within families, or by coercion or sexual exploitation dressed as spiritual help. [synthesis]
  • Steps: (1) Ask who is blamed for the misfortune and how they are treated. (2) If a child is accused or at risk, follow local child-protection procedures; do not wait for cultural consultation. (3) For adults, assess coercion, financial or sexual abuse and use adult-safeguarding routes. (4) Record facts, not judgements about the belief. [synthesis]
  • Example language (illustrative): "When someone in the family is thought to be behind the bad luck, what happens to them?"
  • Watch for: a child described as the cause, isolation, punishments, sudden fear; any intimate or sexual contact presented as part of a cure. Working when risk is assessed and the right agency is involved.

4.12 Integrating an experience of a charm, reading or consultation

  • Purpose / when: when a client reports relief, fear or confusion after a consultation. [synthesis]
  • Steps: (1) Invite a description of the experience and its meaning, without asking for content of charms. (2) Explore what changed (hope, sense of control, reduced self-blame) and what the client wants to carry forward. (3) If relief came with dependence, explore the client's own agency. (4) If fear increased, address it as you would any frightening appraisal. [synthesis]
  • Example language (illustrative): "After you saw her, what felt different? What part of that is yours to keep, even without going back?"
  • Watch for: relief being undermined by therapist scepticism; working when the client describes the experience with their own sense of agency intact.

5. Handling problems

The historical sources do not address therapy; all guidance below is [synthesis] unless a source is given.

  • Client fears you will think them mad or foolish. Name it early; say you ask everyone about all their sources of help; summarise their view accurately before offering yours. Illustrative: "Lots of people use more than one kind of help. I'm not here to judge which is right."
  • Client is stuck in "it's a curse, so therapy can't help". Do not argue the cause. Work on what both frames agree matters: sleep, fear, conflict, functioning. Ask what the client would notice if things lifted, whatever lifted them.
  • Client names a specific person as the ill-wisher. Assess risk to that person and to the client (confrontation, violence, family rupture); if a child is named, follow safeguarding procedures. [source: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-action-plan-to-tackle-child-abuse-linked-to-faith-or-belief]
  • Escalating payments to a curse-remover or psychic. Use 4.8: cost, frequency, fear messages; offer consumer-advice routes; keep the relationship non-shaming so the client keeps telling you.
  • Client stops medication on a practitioner's advice. Do not advise on the medicine; with consent, involve the prescriber promptly; explore what stopping means to the client. If psychosis or severe depression is present, follow risk procedures.
  • Overwhelm or terror ("something is after me"). Ground first, then assess for psychosis, PTSD or panic; involve family informants (4.3) and medical review where needed. Standard suicide risk assessment applies if hopelessness is high.
  • Belief or delusion unclear. Do not decide alone: use informants and a cultural or community consultant with consent (4.6); keep the differential open and document reasons.
  • Client from a charming family or revival group feels pathologised by services. Acknowledge it; reflect strengths of the identity; separate the identity from the presenting problem in the formulation. Do not dispute historical continuity claims unless the client asks. [source: https://eprints-gro.gold.ac.uk/32003/1/accepted%20HC%20%2Bsensory%2Bmuseum%2BDEC%2B2021%2Bwith%2BFIGS%20.pdf]
  • Client asks you to take part (attend a ritual, keep a charm in session, endorse a practice). Decline warmly, explain your role, keep curiosity about meaning.
  • Client asks you for charms, spells or a recommendation of a practitioner. Do not provide or recommend; explore what the client is seeking (control, hope, protection) and work on that.
  • Client fears their own thoughts or wishes harm others. Assess for OCD and guilt; avoid both reassurance loops and endorsing the power; use standard evidence-based OCD care if indicated.
  • Rupture after you voiced scepticism, or after you seemed too credulous. Repair openly: name what happened, ask how it landed, restate your stance (understanding, not judging truth).
  • Non-adherence (missed sessions while consulting elsewhere). Ask without blame; consider coordinated care (4.9) if the client wants it.
  • Family conflict over belief (believers and sceptics). Use the informant version and family sessions to map each person's model; aim for a shared safety plan rather than agreement on cause.
  • Therapist's own strong reactions (fascination, ridicule, fear). Supervision; avoid gathering exotic detail for its own sake; never record charm content. [source: https://rakinglight.co.uk/book-reviews/popular-magic-cunning-folk-in-english-history/]
  • Physical symptoms explained as bewitchment. Encourage medical assessment; no practice is a treatment for physical disease.
  • Sexual contact or touch presented as part of a cure. Treat as a safeguarding and possible criminal matter; support the client to report.

Sources

Web sources:

Books and papers cited:

  • Davies, O. (2003). Cunning-Folk: Popular Magic in English History. Hambledon and London. Paperback (2007) retitled Popular Magic: Cunning-folk in English History, Hambledon Continuum.
  • Davies, O. (1999). Cunning-folk in the medical market-place during the nineteenth century. Medical History, 43, 55–73.
  • Carey, J., Ó Gealbháin, C., Tuomi, I. & Hillers, B. (eds) (2019). Charms, Charmers and Charming in Ireland: From the Medieval to the Modern. University of Wales Press.
  • Kleinman, A., Eisenberg, L. & Good, B. (1978). Culture, illness, and care. Annals of Internal Medicine, 88, 251–258.
  • Gureje, O. et al. (2020). COSIMPO collaborative shared care trial. The Lancet.
  • Ofori-Atta, A. et al. Joining psychiatric care and faith healing in a prayer camp in Ghana: randomised trial. Br J Psychiatry 212(1), doi 10.1192/bjp.2017.12 (year [uncertain]: 2018 volume, repository lists 2019).
  • Lewis-Fernández, R. et al. (2017). Feasibility, acceptability and clinical utility of the Cultural Formulation Interview. Br J Psychiatry 210(4), 290–297.
  • Authorship of the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic article is not stated on the manuscript [uncertain: not verified].
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