There’s no one right way to heal. No singular path to the centre of your self. But in recent years, navigating personal and political-economic crisis, many of us have found our way to some blend of witchcraft and therapy — tools that might seem to come from different worlds, but that echo and reflect each other. Tools that can be powerful — both for ourselves and the communities and ecologies we exist within — when braided together.
We want to be very clear up front: we are not therapists, and our coven can’t replace therapy — especially in moments of crisis or when you're dealing with serious mental health challenges. What we can offer is a web of powerful practices, a sense of solidarity, and a few stepping stones that might help you find your own path to care.
This piece is a humble offering, a collection of jumping-off points. The concepts we’re touching on — from shadow work to internal family systems, from power animals to trauma repair — are deep, complex, and often the life’s work of wise people. Please don’t take this as a definitive guide. Instead, take it as permission to begin — or to begin again.
Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.
Shared Foundations: What Witchcraft and Therapy Have in Common
Both witchcraft and therapy are, in their own ways, rituals of attention and care. They ask us to pause, reflect, listen, and respond. They offer tools to hold paradox, integrate pain, and reconnect to a sense of power and possibility.
Carl Jung spoke of the unconscious as populated by archetypes and complexes, parts of the self with their own personality and storylines. Richard C. Schwartz, founder of Internal Family Systems, describes inner parts as having good intentions even if their strategies are destructive. This resonates with witchcraft traditions that work with shadow selves, ancestor altars, and protective spirits.
Both practices ask us to approach ourselves with curiosity and compassion, rather than shame or fear. And both make space for mystery — the parts of our being we don’t yet understand, and may never fully name.
Witchy Practices That Support Mental Health
More-than-human-kin, Plant Allies & Sensory Grounding
Many witches lean on herbs like rosemary, lemon balm, or lavender for their calming or clarifying properties. Tending to plants, listening to the heart beat of waves, or making a cup of chamomile tea can also be a sensory ritual that grounds you in the present. Therapeutic parallel: These practices mirror techniques used in somatic therapy and trauma-informed care, where sensory grounding is key to helping regulate the nervous system.
Moon Journaling + Grimoire Work
Tracking emotions through lunar cycles, recording dreams or spells in your grimoire, writing letters to your past or future self — these are all ways of naming your experience, of remembering, honouring, crafting who you are. Therapeutic parallel: This echoes journaling techniques in cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and narrative therapy, which help people externalize and process their thoughts.
Spellwork as Ritual Integration
Casting a spell to release an old pattern or honour a transition - for example a cord cutting, or ritual burning - can be a powerful act of integration. Therapeutic parallel: In therapy, symbolic actions (like letter-burning or writing affirmations) are often used to help the psyche mark change and consolidate insight.
Journeying & Talking to Your Parts
Shamanic-style journeying or meditations to meet power animals, guides, or aspects of yourself can be profound. Some witches speak with achetypes, goddesses, even conjure full tulpas or other spirit guides in trance or visualization. Therapeutic parallel: This echoes IFS therapy, which encourages compassionate internal dialogue and acknowledges the self as multiple.
Ancestor Work & Self-Ancestor Conversations
Tending an ancestor altar, asking for guidance, or imagining your own future descendants as aspects of universal energy you can draw on for courage, succour, and guidance, can shift your sense of time and self. Therapeutic parallel: Similar techniques are used in parts work and in trauma therapy, such as speaking to a younger self or receiving wisdom from a future self. These practices create bridges across time for healing.
“You are the result of the love of thousands.”
When Witchcraft Isn’t Enough
We love witchcraft. But it’s not a cure-all. If your magical practice starts to feel isolating, compulsive, or disconnected from joy, that might be a sign to try something else for a while. If you’re experiencing persistent anxiety, intrusive thoughts, disassociation, spirals, or crisis, therapy could help.
Practicing witchcraft doesn’t in and of itself harm your mental health. It isn’t evil. But like any path — spiritual, political, or ethical — it’s not immune to distortion or imbalance. You have to ask yourself: does this practice make me feel more whole, more safe, more in tune with my highest values? Or am I just going through the motions?
A good therapist or coven will support you in taking your space, listening to your intuition, and claiming your own path. A healthy practice will be there when you come back — often richer than before.
"Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health; safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives."
Witch-Friendly Therapy: How to Find the Right Fit
Look for a therapist whose values align with yours. Many therapists today are trained in trauma-informed, queer-affirming, and culturally competent care. Modalities like Internal Family Systems (IFS), Jungian therapy, and somatic approaches may be especially compatible with witchy ways of thinking.
You can search directories like PsychologyToday, TherapyDen or Open Path Collective and filter by specialization or identity. It’s totally okay to ask in a first session whether the therapist is open to discussing spiritual or magical practices.
Conclusion: Ritual and Repair
Ritual and therapy are not enemies. They can feed one another. Each offers a kind of altar: a space where healing can begin.
We’ll be digging deeper into these themes with Dr. Cyndi Brannen — a trained psychologist and Hekatean priestess — in an upcoming episode of the Missing Witches podcast. We talk about the many selves, the call of the ancestors, and how magic and psychology can walk hand in hand.
So light the candle. Subscribe to the podcast. Book the session. Speak to your parts. Lean into your power. You deserve both — and so does the world.
“The only rule of witchcraft that really matters is “know thyself.” Through knowing what’s going on inside of us, we can learn to manage these things and then apply these skills to the way we manipulate external energetic forces. ”
Cyndi Brannen, Keeping Her Keys: An Introduction to Hekate's Modern Witchcraft
