Refrigerator Mother Theory

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Refrigerator mother theory

The term refrigerator mother was coined around 1950 as a label for mothers of children diagnosed with autism or

schizophrenia. These mothers were often blamed for their children's atypical behavior, which included rigid rituals,

speech difficulty, and self-isolation.

The "refrigerator mother" label was based on the assumption that autistic behaviors stem from the emotional frigidity

of the children's mothers. As a result, mothers of some children on the autistic spectrum suffered from blame, guilt,

and self-doubt from the 1950s throughout the 1970s and beyond: when the prevailing medical belief that autism

resulted from inadequate parenting was widely assumed to be correct. Some present-day proponents of the

psychogenic theory of autism continue to maintain that the condition is a result of poor parenting. However, others

merely point out that some conditions are perhaps psychological in origin rather than physiological, and that this is

not necessarily a reflection on parenting skills.

In 2003, Kartemquin Films releasedRefrigerator Mothers, a documentary that takes a look at American mothers of

the 1950s and 1960s and the blame leveled by the medical establishment for the mothers causing their children's

autism. The documentary gives voice to women who no longer accept the blame that was once common for mothersof autistic chidren.

[1]Making its television premiere on PBS'sP.O.V. series,Refrigerator Mothers was featured in a

January 2010 issue ofPsychology Today that focused on the racial and class stereotyping of autism.[2]

Origins of theory

In his 1943 paper that first identified autism, Leo Kanner called attention to what appeared to him as a lack of

warmth among the fathers and mothers of autistic children.[3]

In a 1949 paper, Kanner suggested autism may be

related to a "genuine lack of maternal warmth", noted that fathers rarely stepped down to indulge in children's play,

and observed that children were exposed from "the beginning to parental coldness, obsessiveness, and a mechanical

type of attention to material needs only.... They were left neatly in refrigerators which did not defrost. Their

withdrawal seems to be an act of turning away from such a situation to seek comfort in solitude." [4] In a 1960

interview, Kanner bluntly described parents of autistic children as "just happening to defrost enough to produce a

child."[5]

In the absence of any biomedical explanation for what causes autism after the telltale symptoms were first described

by scientists, Bruno Bettelheim, a University of Chicago professor and child development specialist, and other

leading psychoanalysts championed the notion that autism was the product of mothers who were cold, distant and

rejecting, thus deprived of the chance to "bond properly". The theory was embraced by the medical establishment

and went largely unchallenged into the mid-1960s, but its effects have lingered into the 21st century. Many articles

and books published in that era blamed autism on a maternal lack of affection, but by 1964, Bernard Rimland, a

psychologist who had a son with autism, published a book that signaled the emergence of a counter-explanation to

the established misconceptions about the causes of autism. His book, Infantile Autism: The Syndrome and its

Implications for a Neural Theory of Behavior, attacked the refrigerator mother hypothesis directly.

Soon afterwards, Bettelheim wrote The Empty Fortress: Infantile Autism and the Birth of the Self, in which he

compared autism to being a prisoner in a concentration camp:

"The difference between the plight of prisoners in a concentration camp and the conditions which lead to

autism and schizophrenia in children is, of course, that the child has never had a previous chance to

develop much of a personality."

Some authority was granted to this as well, because Bettelheim had himself been interned at the Dachau

concentration camp before World War II. The book was immensely popular and he became a leading public figure

on autism until his death, but he became controversial after a biography, written 7 years after his death by a

disgruntled cousin of a patient, claimed that he exaggerated his credentials and Dachau experiences. Also, three
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ex-patients questioned his work, characterizing him as a cruel tyrant.[6]

Although Kanner was instrumental in framing the refrigerator mother theory, it was Bettelheim who facilitated its

widespread acceptance by the public and the medical establishment cognoscenti in the 1950s and 1960s.

In 1969, Kanner addressed the refrigerator mother issue at the first annual meeting of what is now the Autism

Society of America, stating:

From the very first publication until the last, I spoke of this condition in no uncertain terms as "innate."

But because I described some of the characteristics of the parents as persons, I was misquoted often as

having said that "it is all the parents' fault."[7]

Other notable psychiatrists

For Silvano Arieti, who wrote his major works from the 1950s through the 70s, the terms autistic thoughtand what

he called paleologic thought are apparently the same phenomenon. Paleologic thought is a characteristic in both

present-day schizophrenics and primitive men, a type of thinking that has its foundations in non-Aristotelian logic.

An autistic child speaks of himself as "you" and not infrequently of the mother as "I." The "you" remains a "you" and

is not transformed into "I".

[8]

For Margaret Mahler and her colleagues, autism is a defense of children who cannot experience the mother as the

living primary-object. According to them, autism is an attempt at dedifferentiation and deanimation.[9]

The symbiotic

autistic syndrome used to be called the "Mahler syndrome" because Mahler first described it: The child is unable to

differentiate from the mother.

Arieti warned that an autistic tendency is a sign of a kind of disorder in the process of socialization, and that when

autistic expressions appear it should be assumed that there is a sort of difficulty between the child and his parents,

especially the schizogenic mother. Children who use autistic expressions, Arieti observes, are children who cannot

bond socially.

InInterpretation of Schizophrenia Arieti maintained that for a normal process of socialization, it is necessary for the

parent-child relations to be normal. Loving or non-anxiety parental attitudes favor socialization. Arieti not only

maintained that the parent-child relations are the first social act and the major drive of socialization, but also a

stimulus to either accept or reject society. The child's self in this view is a reflection of the sentiments, thoughts, and

attitudes of the parents toward the child. Autistic children show an extreme socializing disorder and do not want any

sort of relationship with people. They "eliminate" people from their consciousness. For Arieti the fear of the parents

is extended to other adults: a tendency to cut off communication with human beings.

Persistence of the theory

According to Peter Breggins Toxic Psychiatry, the psychogenic theory of autism was abandoned for political

pressure from parents' organizations, not for scientific reasons. For example, some case reports have shown that

profound institutional privation can result in quasi-autistic symptoms.[10]

Clinician Frances Tustin devoted her life to

the theory. She wrote:

One must note that autism is one of a number of children's neurological disorders of psychogenic nature,

i.e., caused by abusive and traumatic treatment of infants. There is persistent denial by American

society of the causes of damage to millions of children who are thus traumatized and brain damaged as a

consequence of cruel treatment by parents who are otherwise too busy to love and care for their

babies.[11]

Alice Miller, one of the best-known authors of the consequences of child abuse, has maintained that autism is

psychogenic, and that fear of the truth about child abuse is the leitmotif of nearly all forms of autistic therapy known

to her. When Miller visited several autism therapy centers in the United States, it became apparent to her that the

stories of children "inspired fear in both doctors and mothers alike":
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I spent a day observing what happened to the group. I also studied close-ups of children on video. What

became clearer and clearer as the day went on was that all these children had a serious history of

suffering behind them. This, however, was never referred to. In my conversations with the therapists

and mothers, I inquired about the life stories of individual children. The facts confirmed my hunch. No

one, however, was willing to take these facts seriously.[12]

Like Arieti and Tustin, Miller believes that only empathetic parental attitudes lead to the complete blossoming of thechilds personality.

The refrigerator mother theory, widely discarded in the United States, still has some support in France[13]

and Europe

and is largely believed in South Korea to be the cause of autism.[14]

. The academic psychologist Tony Humphreys of

University College Cork is a leading Irish proponent of the theory of frigid parenting, despite censure by the

Psychological Society of Ireland[15]

.

Modern alternatives

The modern consensus is that autism has a strong genetic basis, although the genetics of autism are complex and are

not well understood.[16]

Although recent studies have indicated that maternal warmth, praise, and quality of

relationship are associated with reductions of behavior problems in adolescents and adults with autism, and that

maternal criticisms are associated with maladaptive behaviors and symptoms, these ideas are distinct from the

refrigerator mother hypothesis.[17]

References

[1] Refrigerator Mothers :: Kartemquin Films (http://www.kartemquin. com/films/refrigerator-mothers)

[2] "Bias, Bettelheim and Autism: Is History Repeating Itself?". (http://www.psychologytoday. com/blog/aspergers-diary/201001/

bias-bettelheim-and-autism-is-history-repeating-itself-0/) Soraya, Lynne. Psychology Today. 10 Jan. 2010. Retrieved 25 Jan. 2011.

[3] Kanner L (1943). "Autistic disturbances of affective contact".Nerv Child2: 21750. Reprinted in Kanner, L (1968). "Autistic disturbances of

affective contact.".Acta Paedopsychiatr35 (4): 10036. PMID 4880460. "One other fact stands out prominently. In the whole group, there

are very few really warmhearted fathers and mothers.... The children's aloneness from the beginning of life makes it difficult to attribute the

whole picture exclusively to the type of the early parental relations with our patients."

[4] Kanner L (1949). "Problems of nosology and psychodynamics in early childhood autism".Am J Orthopsychiatry19 (3): 41626.

doi:10.1111/j.1939-0025.1949.tb05441.x. PMID 18146742.

[5] "The child is father" (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,826528,00. html). TIME. 1960-07-25. . Retrieved 2007-07-29.

[6] Finn M (1997). "In the case of Bruno Bettelheim" (http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=3709).First Things (74): 448. .

[7] Feinstein A. "'Refrigerator mother' tosh must go into cold storage" (http://web.archive.org/web/20070927200621/http://autismconnect.

org/news.asp?section=00010001& itemtype=adam&page=9& id=4540). autismconnect. Archived from the original (http://autismconnect.

org/news.asp?section=00010001& itemtype=adam&page=9& id=4540) on 2007-09-27. . Retrieved 2007-07-29.

[8] Arieti S (1974).Interpretation of Schizophrenia (2nd ed.). Northvale, NJ: Aronson. ISBN 1-56821-209-7.

[9] Mahler MS, Furer M, Settlage SF (1959). "Severe emotional disturbances in childhood: psychosis". In Arieti S (ed.).American Handbook of

Psychiatry. 1. Basic Books. pp. 81639. OCLC 277737871.

[10] Rutter M, Andersen-Wood L, Beckett C, et al. (1999). "Quasi-autistic patterns following severe early global privation. English andRomanian Adoptees (ERA) Study Team".J Child Psychol Psychiatry40 (4): 53749. doi:10.1017/S0021963099003935. PMID 10357161.

[11] Tustin F. Revised understandings of psychogenic autism.Int J Psychoanal. 1991;72(Pt 4):58591. PMID 1797714.

[12] Miller A (1991).Breaking Down the Wall of Silence: The Liberating Experience of Facing Painful Truth. Dutton. pp. 4849.

ISBN 0-525-93357-3.

[13] Heurtevent, David (January 2, 2012). "Introduction to Autism in France: A Really Silly Psychiatric System !" (http://www.supportthewall.

org/2012/01/introduction-to-autism-in-france-a-really-silly-psychiatric-system/). Support The Wall - Autism. . Retrieved 25 February 2012.

[14] Cohen D (2007-01-23). "Breaking down barriers" (http://education. guardian. co. uk/higher/news/story/0,,1996213,00. html). The

Guardian. . Retrieved 2007-07-29.

[15] "Controversial autism article should be retracted - Psychological Society of Ireland" (http://www.thejournal. ie/

controversial-autism-article-should-be-retracted-psychological-society-of-ireland-350914-Feb2012/). The Journal.ie. 2012-02-09. .

[16] Abrahams BS, Geschwind DH (2008). "Advances in autism genetics: on the threshold of a new neurobiology".Nat Rev Genet9 (5):

34155. doi:10.1038/nrg2346. PMC 2756414. PMID 18414403.

[17] Smith LE, Greenberg JS, Seltzer MM, Hong J (2008). "Symptoms and behavior problems of adolescents and adults with autism: effects of

mother-child relationship quality, warmth, and praise".Am J Ment Retard113 (5): 387402. doi:10.1352/2008.113:387-402. PMC 2826841.
http://www.thejournal.ie/controversial-autism-article-should-be-retracted-psychological-society-of-ireland-350914-Feb2012/http://www.thejournal.ie/controversial-autism-article-should-be-retracted-psychological-society-of-ireland-350914-Feb2012/http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,1996213,00.htmlhttp://www.supportthewall.org/2012/01/introduction-to-autism-in-france-a-really-silly-psychiatric-system/http://www.supportthewall.org/2012/01/introduction-to-autism-in-france-a-really-silly-psychiatric-system/http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Interpretation_of_Schizophreniahttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Silvano_Arietihttp://autismconnect.org/news.asp?section=00010001&itemtype=adam&page=9&id=4540http://autismconnect.org/news.asp?section=00010001&itemtype=adam&page=9&id=4540http://web.archive.org/web/20070927200621/http://autismconnect.org/news.asp?section=00010001&itemtype=adam&page=9&id=4540http://web.archive.org/web/20070927200621/http://autismconnect.org/news.asp?section=00010001&itemtype=adam&page=9&id=4540http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=3709http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,826528,00.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Leo_Kannerhttp://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/aspergers-diary/201001/bias-bettelheim-and-autism-is-history-repeating-itself-0/http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/aspergers-diary/201001/bias-bettelheim-and-autism-is-history-repeating-itself-0/http://www.kartemquin.com/films/refrigerator-mothershttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Heritability_of_autismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Psychological_Society_of_Irelandhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=University_College_Corkhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tony_Humphreys


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PMID 18702558.


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