Inline, I found the page and chapter you cite in Liz Greene, 1996,
The Astrological Neptune and the Quest for Redemption. It' s in a section called "Fusion and Separation," which starts out talking about Donald Winnicott's
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Winnicott theory of the "good enough mother."
To put some cards on the table: I am the mother of two adult children who turned out well by most standards, in terms of career and emotional stability. Both are sun-Virgos, and my daughter's Pisces moon opposes her sun. My son's Scorpio moon sextiles his sun. I am fortunate to have a loving, stable relationship with both of them (their words,) although my daughter and I went through rockier passages than I did with my son. Both of my children left home to attend universities a considerable distance from where I live, with our encouragement, and now live nowhere nearby, so I don't think I qualify as Ms. Smothering Mother. I worked part-time before they were school age in order to spend time with them while keeping a hand in my career.
I have a lot of trouble with Greene's fusion of astrology and psychoanalysis.
When my children were young I knew many other mothers of young children, through play groups, pre-school, religious school, neighbours, and wives of colleagues. These experiences do not rank me with pediatricians, pre-school teachers, or child psychologists, but they did give me a sample of mostly-normal mother-child relationships during the children's early years. Rarely, I saw the over-protective (to me) mother, never the neglectful mother of a young child. Most of the moms and children seemed perfectly OK and loving.
I don't write this to turn attention to myself: rather, as one illustration of why Greene's psychoanalysis may fall short.
Greene notes that Winnicott's theory helpfully turned attention away from "impossible standards of perfection" for mothers. Ultimately "the objective is not parent-bashing." So far, so good.
But on p. 149 (which you cite) we don't learn about the OK Mom, but about the "compulsively self-interested" mother who neglects her "Neptunian" child's emotional needs.
The "Neptunian child" unfortunately could be just about anybody: sun or moon in Pisces? Neptune rising? Neptune squaring, conjuncting, or opposing a personal planet?
Then the "overly 'preoccupied' mother-- the one who cannot relinquish her own fusion with the child--may be portrayed in the child's birth chart by difficult configurations of the Moon with Neptune or Pluto, or with the Moon, Neptune, or Pluto located at the Midheaven and/or in the 10th house."
Allowing for a 10-degree orb with the moon, and 5 to 7 degrees for the planets, we are now talking about a lot of real estate around the horoscope perimeter. Yet how common, really, in the general population, are these problems? Of course they occur, but does anyone else see anything loosey-goosey here?
The "good enough mother" theory in this section further does not acknowledge the role of child-rearing theories, pediatric professionals, and culture in child-rearing practices. (Anyone else here recall the "other" Spock, author of
Baby and Child Care, one of the best-selling books of all time?)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Spock Anyone here read Alice Miller on the aloofness and even cruelty of normed German child-rearing practices?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Miller_(psychologist) Her book
Drama of the Gifted Child places the blame for mental health problems due to child abuse on the shoulders of societies that ignore or even foster it.
What about children who grow up in close extended families, notably in places where multiple care-givers is the cultural norm, and nobody expects Mom to be the sole primary care-giver for her baby? Grandmothers who live close by and have the time to spare are often huge contributors to the raising of young children. Many working mothers today have been fortunate to find loving and attentive paid care-givers.
Sadly, back when I was a kid, there was no emotional support for single mothers who had to work long hours to support their children-- putting bread on the table and a roof over their heads. No doubt some middle-class psychoanalysts saw them as "aloof" or "self absorbed."
One feels (pp. 152-3) that Winnecott's "good enough mother" still faces a high bar, indeed.
For a recent and balanced retrospective on Freud, see:
http://io9.com/why-freud-still-matters-when-he-was-wrong-about-almost-1055800815
The author notes that psychological scientists had abandoned Freud's theories by 1996-- the year Greene's book was published.
Of the Liz Greene books I've read this one is, nevertheless, probably her best. It is loaded with scholarship, multiple examples, and I think a good characterization of Neptune beyond psychoanalysis. I had many "aha" moments reading this book. I just happen to disagree with Greene's portrayal of motherhood, because it seems to be based upon a flawed psychoanalytic view of motherhood more generally.
Greene herself has no children.
If you want to talk people who want to paper over credentials, I'm going to have to introduce you to the ISAR people. I may have mentioned this before, but at one time they had a proposal to make all of their certificate program students undergo a year of therapy.