SW, those are really good questions. I haven't had much positive transference with my T. Sometimes I have thought what sort of person in my life my relationship with him most resembles, and I think I would say a brother (an ideal brother, not the one I now have LOL). I feel close to my T like I would to a very close relatively-the-same-age male family member. I have not had positive mother (or father) transference to him. We have a very positive and warm relationship, but most of that is based on our own history together, not transference.

Fairly recently, I had some negative mother transference on him, and I hated that. We talked about it.

I think a T can try to be positive and supportive and empathetic to build the relationship. I don't think transference has to necessarily be there, but the positivity and support are important. I think "manipulate" is a negative word, but yes, I think the therapist can "use" the positive relationship (either transferential or real) to help the client. I think the T can ask the client to do more if there is that solid and positive foundation for the client to fall back on. There are times I had to do something difficult and T asked me to do X, and I was able to just rely on our strong relationship without questioning too much, because I trusted him so much. If a person with whom I had a weaker and more negative relationship made the same suggestions, I would probably not do them, because of the lack of trust and understanding. So I think the T can use the strong relationship with the client to empower and help motivate the client. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing. With time in therapy, the ego strength of the client can increase, and self-motivation becomes stronger, rather than using the T to motivate.