Refrigerator mother

The term refrigerator mother (Engl. Refrigerator mother ) is in attachment theory used and referred to mothers that their children comfort presumably too little, hold her or cuddle with them.

Leo Kanner , who described early childhood autism in 1943 , believed it possible that autism was due to a lack of maternal warmth. This theory was continued above all in the book The Birth of the Self (1967) by the psychologist Bruno Bettelheim .

Because of this theory that autism is caused by psychological factors, parents of autistic children have historically suffered from unjustified allegations. Even today, parents are sometimes still blamed by their environment for the autistic behavior of their children.

It is now clear that autism has neurological causes and it is assumed that it may be genetic (see autism ).

Web links

• Herbert van Oorschot: Autism: Heredity. (PDF; 82 kB) Heike Frank (www.aspergia.de), accessed on March 23, 2012 (from the Dutch by Heike Frank): "With the kind permission of PAS Nederland (www.pasnederland.nl)." 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Judith Sinzig: Early childhood autism . Springer, 2011, p. 3, 31–40 ( excerpt (Google) )
2. ↑ Serge Cicotti: 150 psychological aha experiments: observations on our own experience and behavior . Springer, 2014, p. 3 ( excerpt (Google) )

This article is about a health issue. It is not used for self-diagnosis and does not replace a diagnosis by a doctor. Please note the information on health issues !