Beyond the Limits of Theory of Mind Analysis: Olga Orozco’s “Tierras en erosión” [Eroding Lands] and First-Hand Accounts of Autism

by Elizabeth S. Rousselle

The poem “Tierras en erosión” [Eroding Lands] by twentieth-century Argentine poet Olga Orozco evokes aspects of autism such as sensory overload, chaos and fear, isolation from non-autistics, and awareness of alienation, as conveyed by first-hand accounts of people on the autism spectrum.  Orozco and researchers and writers with autism such as Temple Grandin, William Stillman, Kamran Nazeer, and Donna Williams express an insider’s view of the realities of the experience of autism.  In doing so, they overcome the limits of reductive representations of autism such as the theory of mind analysis which makes the erroneous assumption that people with autism are incapable of perceiving that other people have separate minds and modes of thought. 

PsyArt is an online, peer-reviewed journal featuring articles using a psychological approach to the arts. We provide a rapid publication decision and a large and international readership. The journal is open to any psychology and any art, although PsyArt specializes in psychoanalytic psychology and literature or film.