Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The study of symptomatic forms of psychosis is fundamental to understanding other descriptions and expressions of mental illness in ancestral cultures such as the Maya. This approach is based on the texts and documentary descriptions that describe the way mental illness was understood, interpreted, diagnosed and treated in the pre-Hispanic Maya, on texts that were rewritten several times, such as the books of the Chilam Balam or the Popol Vuh, and on writings that leave descriptions of illnesses, such as the Bocabulario de Maya Than, the Ritual de los Bacabes, the Codex Perez, which, in the light of current psychiatry, can be seen as possible forms of psychosis. These pathologies continue to permeate the indigenous peoples, who describe similarities in the approach and understanding of mental illness as a temporary bridge to the ancient Maya. In ancient times, illness was conceived as a rupture or imbalance in the harmony of the community, of the person and his relationship with the cosmos, since the sick person was never described as detached from his social role, nor from the fulfilment of his obligations, so that these forces were subject to the behaviour between man and the gods, hence the importance of the priest-doctors, who acted as intermediaries between the earthly and the rest of the forces acting on the world, into which the sick were inserted.
Source: Mente y Cultura
Author: Ricardo Arturo Saracco-Alvarez
Language: English
Subfield: Clinical Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4414425433