ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how collaborative-dialogic practices (CDP) and their underlying assumptions could be valuable when working with indigenous people in psychotherapeutic contexts. The collaborative-dialogic stance provides a context in which to understand how the Mayan worldview, and other ancestral knowledge, proposes a vision for the practices and permeates the constructions of meanings and one's daily life. The recognition of ancestral knowledge and its integration into CDP allows to develop new ways of looking at the authors’ clients and themselves in the therapeutic and academic work context, and within the different communities with which they interact. At Kanankil, they have begun to integrate some ancient concepts into the everyday practices as therapists, educators, and consultants. When Mayan people speak of individuals, their bodies, and their identities, they describe them as a replica of the cosmos. There are two conceptions in the Mayan world-view that are extremely important in the authors work: the concept of time and the concept of disease.
