My T said this very same things...that he is relational and does not do supportive therapy and that his job isn't to make me feel good....the question whether we have the same T actually crosses my mind sometimes.

He has changed a bit and is now more supportive. Not a lot but enough to make it more effective. They can be somewhat flexible and not relinquish who they are and how they work. I think he only did that because of the extent of my trauma history. It's not good to work that way if people have a certain level of stressors or instability in their life, and my T made the mistake of not taking that into account. You wouldn't work that way, for example, with someone whose depression is so severe that they are at risk for suicide.

The exploratory therapy is imo always more difficult but also more transformational. With a good T, the negative transference likely represents the issues that prevent you from living how you want.

But yeah, just this one concept can answer to how the way the T works. It took me years to figure out that's what it boils down to. When people say a T is 'freudian' they are usually referring to Ts who are more exploratory rather than freudian. Therapists who are ignorant about psychoanalysis or had no training in it, get it wrong all the time in their articles and blogs.