After all, it is measurable and identifies a culprit. We can all remember things our mothers did that hurt our feelings. Women have been told they have penis envy. Never mind that Karen Horney suggested it was power envy. Mothers have been blamed for autism and schizophrenia.
Science sweeps that responsibility under the rug and races on to a new theory.
A kind male psychiatrist assured me that eating disorders are caused by controlling mothers. Heinz Kohut observes, without much support, that narcissism is caused by mothers' inability to applaud their children's budding independence. Since mother guilt is an accepted doctrine, no one raises a question. Daniel Stern's research with infants and toddlers is used to defend this claim, and Control Mastery theory relentlessly beats the drum of mother blame. Faulty mirroring in the first two years of life, such an obscure doctrine, damns one's existence.