I voted "maybe", not because I am unsure but because I did withhold quite a lot of things from my therapists, but not at all driven by fear of sounding manipulative. I actually was manipulative and aware of it, much like in my everyday life around the same issue. All of it was centered around my drinking problem, relapses, and the consequences many years of that had on my life. When I first entered therapy, I was about 1.5 year sober and happy about it, I started therapy to address smaller issues, anxiety, and out of curiosity. When things started to become complicated was when I relapsed and hid it from my T. In my case the drinking had nothing to do with therapy, or managing my feelings related to sessions - I was addicted to alcohol for many years prior. Then I admitted the relapse to the T at some point, but not the full extent of it. There was similar with my second T as well even though I very openly sought him out to help with my drinking problem in the first place, as a primary issue.

My experience was also that it is, indeed, pretty much a waste of time and money to go to therapy while hiding the biggest ongoing culprit of all. I was not afraid of coming across as manipulative - I was very used to it and just repeated my well-known behaviors with the Ts in certain periods. In my experience, most addicts become master manipulators in order to maintain the habit, and so was I. In part it's driven by deep shame and also a compulsion to get away with the behavior. I did manage to break it eventually but there were still many things I never discussed with Ts.

In general though, I think that both of my Ts attempted just as many manipulative acts, some that were beyond the scope of the inherently contrived nature of therapy whether they were aware of it or not. I think that therapy can really become a web of disingenuous behaviors if the participants are so inclined. Observing all that can be a valuable lesson on its own though, at least I've learned from mine. Those lessons are the primary reasons why, I think, my time and money was not wasted at all. And I did find the process of therapy helpful with many smaller issues and obsessive tendencies to variable extents. Also, my Ts never said that I was manipulative, it's me thinking it.