When Care Reinforces Fear: A Safeguarding Reflection on Deliverance Ministry

During my time as a Diocesan Safeguarding Adviser in the Church of England, I encountered safeguarding situations that required discernment, professional curiosity, and a willingness to look beneath the surface.

One experience has stayed with me.

I attended what was described as a house blessing. It developed into a form of deliverance ministry, what some might describe as a minor exorcism. The intention was pastoral. The aim was to bring peace to a home where something did not feel right.

There were no levitating bodies or anything resembling a scene from a horror film. No spinning heads, no dramatic soundtrack. And yet the safeguarding concern was there, subtle, complex, and hidden in plain sight.

In my view, the experience fed into an existing narrative of fear. That narrative may not have originated in spiritual disturbance, but in anxiety, grief or other underlying emotional or physical health factors. Rather than reducing distress, the process risked reinforcing and entrenching it.

This is where safeguarding becomes most challenging. Not in obvious harm, but in the subtle space where care begins to blur into influence.

When getting ready for work that morning, I found myself hedging my bets and wearing my late grandmother’s crucifix necklace. Not standard safeguarding practice, and a sign of how easy it is to be drawn into the narrative.

At one point, during prayers, an ordinary household noise caused a split second pause. In most settings it would have been dismissed as pipes, a boiler, or just the house being a house. Here, it briefly auditioned for a much more dramatic role, and was almost cast, or cast out, depending on your point of view. The moment passed quickly, but it showed how easily the ordinary can be drawn into a much more dramatic storyline.

Afterwards, during a debrief, one of the priests suggested the possibility of poltergeist activity, linked to the prior use of Ouija boards and the idea that something had been invited in. It was expressed calmly and with conviction, which perhaps made it more striking. The explanation had now moved beyond the moment itself and begun to settle into something that no longer felt open to question, shaped by the imbalance of power and my position as the one expected to understand rather than challenge.

The concern was not simply what was done, but what was reinforced. Once a particular explanation took hold, everything seemed to align with it. Feelings became indicators. Ordinary experiences were no longer neutral.

What was missing was just as important. There was little curiosity about alternative explanations, including anxiety or other mental health factors. When something is spiritualised, other explanations are no longer seriously considered. When distress is understood through a single lens, particularly one shaped by authority, it can limit a person’s ability to interpret their experience in a grounded way. Instead, it can create a dependency on those they believe might hold the answers.

When mental health is unintentionally spiritualised, anxiety can be misread as something external, delaying care while feeding the very fear it seeks to address.

An unhealthy cycle can develop, with increasing reliance on spiritual authority, where ongoing distress is taken as evidence that the issue persists, driving further intervention that may not meet the person’s actual needs. This is where care can become control, not through intention, but through effect.

Safeguarding is often associated with clear harm, but some of the greatest risks arise in quieter spaces, where everything appears pastoral and well intentioned. It requires us to ask not only whether something is well meant, but whether it is helpful, and to recognise when distress has a psychological origin, responding in ways that support rather than obscure or entrench it.

What I witnessed was not malicious. It was, however, a situation in which anxiety may have been reinforced by the very process intended to resolve it.

That is enough to warrant reflection.

Those seeking peace should not leave with a deeper sense of unease, or with a more vivid imagination of what might be lurking in the airing cupboard. Care must always be measured by its impact on the person it is meant to support.

~ Michelle Burns

Guarding the Flock

Writing this blog takes time, care, and a lot of tea. If it’s been helpful to you, you’re very welcome to buy me a cuppa as a small way of supporting it. No pressure at all – I’m just glad you’re here - Michelle