This is so true.
It's much like asking why some people have depression or anxiety. Sometimes it's a response to physical pain. Sometimes it's a result of external stressors, like bereavement, trauma, relationship or family difficulties, being unhappy at work and so on. Sometimes someone can have what seems like a perfect life to an outsider but still feel utterly miserable inside. Some people can be helped by changing their routine, exercise, seeing friends, eating a more healthy diet, cutting out alcohol, meditation and similar. Other people are helped by talking therapies that help them better understand their feelings and learn how to manage them. Other people are helped by medical therapies like medication. It's an incredibly complex area involving everything from neurochemistry to sociology to genetics. There isn't a single magic cure that will help all individuals, and for most people, learning what works best for them is a process that can take years of experimentation.
And that's with human subjects who can talk and explain their feelings!
It's profoundly difficult to understand why a parrot destroys their feathers. There are multiple factors that all interact with each other. Feather destruction may be as a result of physical causes like pain, or may be a response to stress, hormones, lack of stimulation and a host of other things. It may be triggered by something and then becomes a habit that is incredibly difficult to break. It's hypothesised that the act of plucking produces endorphins, similar to some kinds of self-harming behaviours in humans, and the parrot is rewarded for plucking by getting a rush of feel-good chemicals.
We keep parrots in a deeply unnatural environment where they do not eat, exercise, play, breed or socialise as their wild cousins do; this is inherently stressful. Perhaps some individuals are simply more sensitive to that. There is some research that indicates that having choice, especially being able to fly and move independently, seems to be a protective factor against feather destruction. There's some evidence that SSRIs (a type of antidepressant) have an effect on plucking behaviour for some birds. There's some evidence that hormone implants help others. Some parrots' activities can be channeled into more appropriate play, for example using preening toys. Some parrots may pluck as a result of nutritional deficiencies and this product could certainly help cover that, particularly if the bird is on an all-seed diet.
Plucking is horrendously complicated and one of the big mysteries of aviculture. It's distressing for both the parrot and their human families. There isn't a magic cure and people get desperate, and there are all sorts of people willing to take advantage of that desperation. I've seen everything from weird diets to homopathic baths, all very expensive and rarely with openly available, solid research backing up their claims. I truly, truly wish that there was a way to stop feather destructive behaviours and that there was an easy way to fix or cure it, but there isn't.
I'm not saying this to get at anyone or criticise them; I'm just pointing out how complex both the problem and possible solutions are.
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