I suppose it helps me that I almost never experience the therapist as being nice. At times I can tell there may be an attempt at appearing nice, but I can usually thwart it. At least once there was an exchange where she told me she had been about to say something nice to me but stopped because I had been sarcastic. I was all like "whahoo - sarcasm works" - which is not the response she seemed to expect.
For me it is not bad as long as the cost is known. With my mother, it seemed like to get her to like me or whatever would cost me myself - a price I was unwilling to pay. She would tell me others would not like me because I was not X enough. For me X enough was too high a price to pay to be liked and so I am prepared to be disliked by others because I am not X enough ever. As a 4-5 year old, sex with family member to get to hang around him did not seem too high a price to pay.
Favors or niceness from the therapist seems more like my mother's X enough to me.

Sorry - I keep stream of concious posting on your thread.