I personally think that most skilled, well-trained therapists do not purposely manipulate their clients feelings/emotions in the way you mentioned, but like all relationships, mistakes, missed opportunities and miscommunications are made over the course of time and are part of good therapy. A good and skilled therapist won't overlook or brush these situations aside; she will want to talk about them and process them you. I think that dealing with the feelings that arise over the typical "mistakes" that happen in therapy are part of the healing. For me, it's been an opportunity to feel the sting of being hurt by someone I care about, having the chance to actually speak frankly of what that person did that hurt me, have that person keenly listen (and I mean listen rather than interrupt or concentrate on how they're going to respond), to have that person understand that hurt on a deep and personal level, to validate that hurt AND most importantly, apologize for hurting me and meaning it! That situation has been so healing for me and has helped me to return that gift to other people I interact with outside of therapy.

One poster mentioned that his/her therapist admitted to canceling an appointment on purpose in order to push her client into confronting and dealing her feelings around an appointment being cancelled (abandonment). If a client has issues with abandonment, I don't think there needs to be any manipulation; the feelings will rise up without this type of technique. I have to admit that this kind of manipulation is not something I would be happy to hear (And I wanted to say to the poster of this comment that I am sincerely not trying to attack or dump on your therapist--I realize that many people would be fine with this type of technique). The reason it bothers me is that I view it as a true manipulation. I've found that there are enough "real" in-session mistakes and miscommunications to be a teaching moment. I have a hard time with knowing that people I care about would purposefully do something that causes distress--no matter how mild in order to elicit feelings in me.