Bruno Bettelheim (August 28, 1903 – March 13, 1994), a Jewish native of Austria, became known as a child psychologist and writer after immigrating as a refugee to the United States of America in 1939. He gained an international reputation for his views on autism and for his success in treating emotionally disturbed children.

Bettelheim subscribed to and became a prominent proponent of the "refrigerator mother" theory of autism — the theory that autistic behaviors stem from the emotional frigidity of the children's mothers — which enjoyed considerable influence into the 1960s and 1970s in the US. However, some indications suggest that he later changed his thinking.. Bettelheim's 1967 book The Empty Fortress: Infantile Autism and the Birth of the Self, which promoted the "refrigerator mother" theory of autism, enjoyed wide success, especially in the popular press. The book played a key role in ensuring that the "refrigerator mother" theory soon became the accepted explanation for autism in popular culture and, to a considerable extent, in professional circles.

As a result, many mothers of children on the autistic spectrum suffered from feelings of blame, guilt, and self-doubt from the 1950s throughout the 1970s and beyond: under the widespread assumption of the correctness of the prevailing medical belief that autism resulted from inadequate parenting.