Georg Frankl : the third or first man in the genesis of autism?

Abstract

Autism is a developmental disorder that has significant consequences on the future of the individuals concerned. Officially described for the first time in the 1940’s, the disorder knew conceptual oscillations, but increasingly it is considered a sort of spectrum or continuum characterized mainly by a difficulty in social communication. In this article we will show how two very different clinical types of the autistic spectrum, i.e. the clinical descriptions of Kanner and Asperger’s, owe much to the role played by the Viennese psychiatrist Georg Frankl who worked with both clinicians. Frankl’s role would not only have been that a sort of channel of communication between Kanner and Asperger, but it would have been Frankl who influenced both psychiatrists in a decisive way.