I realize unconditional positive regard does not equal loving or liking the client. It's an attempt to present a nonjudgmental, accepting face to the client, unconditionally. But since nobody can do that, it has to be artifice (to paraphrase Masson). That then is a manipulation.

I've never had a therapist who said they would reparent me. But the very nature of therapy induces parent-child dynamics. It's automatic. With the last one, she never said any such thing and did not encourage it overtly, but I regressed for sure. Clearly this was the underlying thing.

Regarding empowering clients, I found it profoundly disempowering. But also the idea that a client becomes empowered or autonomous by entering therapy suggests that the therapist grants this power and autonomy, which means the client is actually powerless and dependent, for without the therapist presumably they would be lost.