I just want to add that the purpose of mirroring is to add to a person's self-worth or self-esteem. We mirror each other when we are engaged with each other. The effort on a therapist's part, then, I would hope, wouldn't be hollow--just a game--but would be an attendance to my posture, tone, energy so that we are "in synch" and I feel like my needs are leading the time together, not that I have to fit into his needs--like worry over how many more things he needs to get done that day, that he's hungry, that he's tired, etc. Mirroring me is as much that conscious effort to attend the other person as it is anything else. If/when it is manipulative, it should, with our T's, be toward the purpose of working toward an ambience that helps us do healing work with them...