I think this is the deception. My own therapists, and numerous authors and bloggers I've encountered present themselves as shamans, absolute authorities and experts on subjects that no mortal human can possibly be. OK, I as a client took my own need to venerate, but the dynamics were two (in one case three) sided tangos with therapists feeding the idolization and my subjugation.

I've seen power and hierarchy create in the most subtle of ways, through someone pretending to have pat answers to situations that are not clear-cut, by dismissiveness, through word choice or vocal tone, by controlling the narrative, by labeling, by painting the client as the vulnerable, flawed one. I enjoyed a book about the subtleties: Theo Dorpat's "Gaslighting, the Double Whammy, Interrogation and Other Methods of Covert Control in Psychotherapy and Analysis."

It's interesting how we recognize subtle manipulation when we're outside it. We see the humor and irony in "mean girl" types of stories, the tiny digs, the strategies the Queen Bee uses to keep her position. The situation isn't so funny when we're in it.