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withit said:
I think therapy ends when the client feels he/she no longer wants it.

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That seems to be the ideal situation, but we read several examples in our forum here of people being terminated by their T's (or suggesting that they terminate) before they feel ready or against their wishes. So it seems many T's do not subscribe to this notion. Maybe a solution for the client is to have sequential bouts of therapy with different therapists. Go to one T for 2 years until he/she decides you're ready for termination and terminates you, then start again with someone else and see him/her for 2 years, then repeat the cycle. Maybe this is the best we can hope for--sequential longterm therapy with different therapists. The truth is, I feel so attached and bonded to my T that I would never want to do this with anyone else. I had no problem leaving my first counselor (I wasn't bonded with her at all) to go to my current therapist. The strongly attached therapeutic relationship is really a conundrum. Through your attachment, you heal, then you don't want to leave because it is so beneficial to you. If therapists let people stay forever, maybe they would end up with client rosters of largely "healed" people and maybe this isn't what they want their emphasis in practice to be.