Manipulation in therapy

Is your therapist manipulative?
Is therapy inherently manipulative?
And if not, what are the alternatives?

My therapist is not manipulative. He's very open and honest. Sometimes therapists use the strength of the relationship to spur change in their clients. I guess if the client doesn't know what's going on, he might feel manipulated. For me, this doesn't feel manipulative, it feels good to know we are close enough that my T might be able to provoke change in me. Because it is sure hard enough to do all that on my own. It can make me feel closer, like the relationship is tangible if it can be used and relied on in this way.

Another type of manipulation in therapy is when it is the client who is manipulative. Therapists have to be able to deal with this. Probably as they gain more experience they get better at not being manipulated--spotting it sooner, redirecting, referring clients they are particularly susceptible to, etc.

stop dog, where are you?!

Can you give an example of why you think (if you do) therapy is maniplutive?

Sometimes when I've been feeling extra awful and T has said something, perhaps try to offer a different way to see something I have felt myself stiffen and refuse to budge from my position for fear she is trying to take away from me how I am feeling. But in truth that was my experience with my mother, she would tell me what I was feeling wasn't real so am very sensitive to that sort of thing and felt as if T was trying to manipulate that, but of course she want. Felt she was about to twist and turn me to her way or no way, transference again on my behalf.

But like sunrise says, I came to learn that T is very straight and honest.

I too am wondering what you are seeing as manipulation. I don't think a T should manipulate their clients, as this relationship is supposed be healthy. I think there needs to be a genuineness in the relationship, some transparency, not manipulation.

Well for instance, deliberately triggering you.

Or maybe imitating your bad behaviour without telling you that's what they are doing.

Or asking a series of leading questions to with a preconceived end in view.

Manipulation is what puppeteers do and there are no strings on me. A T cannot get control of one without that one pretending to give control. I say pretending, because we are always separate, no matter how much we wish someone else were in charge of us and our thoughts, feelings, and behavior.

Can't explain. That as you describe isn't amanipulation sounds sadistic which is how would sometimes imagine T to be, but she wasn't it was transference.. How does he/she copy bad behaviour?

I believe that the word "manipulation" has negative connotations attached to it - but really its just a simple descriptive word. I believe that therapists manipulate, but that is the therepeutic value of it. Just like doctors manipulate our bodies into becoming well (with medication), so too do therapists manipulate our minds into becoming well. Every word that comes out of a T's mouth is said with an intended effect - they don't just say it because they feel like it. Every word they say has a purpose and in that way it is manipulation (in my opinion, that is). Whether it be to make you aware of something, or understand something, or whatever.

I think I understand what your thoughts are on t's being manipulative, cantexplain. I think you mean that we are feeling okay whilein our comfort zones and then out of nowhere a question or comment is made by t that completely changes our course. It's part of the skills they have to help us heal. My t says that I have stuff inside that has to come out if I want to heal, and she can come up with some questions that make me very uncomfortable in order to help me.
Bluemountains

I agree. My therapist was very straightforward about this issue when I asked him about it a few years ago after reading a couple of articles written by well known therapists (one was Yalom but I don't remember the other one) who referred to the process as being inherently manipulative. My therapist said people don't like to hear the word manipulation because of its negative connotations, but by definition therapy is a form of manipulation because it is a process that is designed to bring about change. Manipulation can be either helpful or harmful -- it all depends on how it's used.

True true!

I think I understand why you ask the question, Can't Explain, and yes, I do believe there is a form of manipulation exercised by T. I don't particularly like it or agree with it. I think T's can do therapy without deliberate manipulation but, I am not a T.

As clients, we are asked to be honest, vulnerable, open to the process and it makes it incredibly hard to remain ALL these things when we experience it.

My T and I just recently had this conversation because of a recent experience. One if his responses in an email felt like a carrot on a stick. ( I wrote about it in a thread here on PC). I asked him about it at my next session and he acknowledged his response was very deliberately sent. He could have easily sent the same response to me on Thursday morning, yet he waited. It felt like "just enough" to get me to come back to my next session and he said it was meant for that purpose. I think an authentic response would have been equally ( if not, MORE) effective and would not have stirred up some of the negative thoughts I had regarding his response.

Is this what you meant by manipulation?

I do believe everything the therapist does has a purpose meant to have a specific sort of impact on the client. The way the office is arranged, the dialogue, the questions and the responses - everything the therapist does is for some reaction from the client. That does not make it evil necessarily, but it is manipulation.

How can the impact on you be guaranteed to be similar to the one on me? How can anything (you or I or a T does) be "not" manipulation? Manipulation is "shrewd or devious" influence. Why not just say that T's hope to influence us (positively)? Don't we all hope to do that to one another?

Because it is not just that those people hope to influence us - they plan and take deliberate steps to create a response or reaction. That is manipulation. Every book by every clinician has described, with some delight and even with some of them a sense of superiority, the deliberateness of their every move to do something to the client
And while not everyone is going to react the same to something like their office arrangement, that does not make the arrangement less deliberate for an effect. Whether it ultimately has that effect or not does not take away the attempt.

I asked my T about this yesterday - I told him about wily T's - and he said he didn't think most T's were as smart as we supposed them to be.

I never thought they were smart. I think most of them are half-wits who are lucky to find their way to the office every day. I am not saying they are necessarily good at it and certainly not across the board- just that it is their way of operating. Wile E Coyote is not good at it. He gets outsmarted by the roadrunner every time. But that does not make him not wily. Just not good at wily.

I think therapy should be therapeutic, no matter what technique is used. If it doesn't feel therapeutic then its not therapy. Personally I'm not into masochism and do not use therapy for self flagellation.

I am not certain what therapeutic feels like. Manipulation does not necessarily translate into sadism and masochism.

but if it does then its not theraputic. dont be silly you know what theraputic feels like lol

I agree with that. I'm pretty certain my T uses manipulation to help me reframe my thinking, change behaviors, etc. I don't consider that deceitful or hurtful at all.

I'm a teacher, and I manipulate the environment in my room all the time to help ensure students are learning. I frame my questioning of them deliberately to guide them through the literature and teach them skills such as literary and rhetorical analysis. Am I hurting them? Absolutely not. The goal is always that they will pick up those skills and start using them naturally on their own.

I think of T's a bit as teachers I guess. Personally, if a T just sat there and let me flounder in old thinking and behaviors rather than guiding me toward change, what the heck would I be paying him for?

No I do not.

Yes.

I don't think my T manipulates in a malicious (negative) way but I do think therapy is designed to be inherently manipulative, or very deliberate.

Because of my past, I prefer T to be genuine in his responses/decisions instead of very deliberate and clinical. I was manipulated as a child. As an adult, when I see manipulation (positive or negative) it scares me. I always feel safer when it comes from a place of authenticity.

Stopdog you make me smile