Interesting topic. I know that I've been "oppositional" in therapy. I'm kind of an oppositional kind of person. But I agree that, although a T should sometimes take the opposite view, I don't think she should be so dug in and defensive in her oppositional view that you feel as though you're squaring off for a big argument with one person the winner and the other the loser.

My best trained and most compassionate and skilled T was a person who would almost immediately recognize when I had backed her into a corner and was looking for a fight. She learned not to get backed into that corner. She wasn't snarky or defensive in her refusal to be backed into that corner, she just didn't engage in my attempts to push her into that position so that I could win the argument. On the other hand, I've also worked for very short periods of time with Ts who were even more oppositional and determined to "win" than me! I could feel my hackles go up. And I also tried out a few Ts who were so whimpy and so into the "you poor thing" mentality that I knew nothing would ever get done in therapy. What I learned from all of them is my own style of interacting, and that helped me to interact better with people in my personal life.