There comes a point in psychotherapy where you might feel you have more freedom in your life, and things are working the way you want. After a lot of effort, you begin to understand how your life works. You might be starting to see changes: better relationships, deeper friendships, more satisfying work.

When you think about ending therapy at that point, it's worth considering something similar that happens in other areas of life. A band that has made it and sells millions of tickets for a tour. An actor who suddenly finds themselves on the A-list. They might let go of the manager, the producer, the director who nurtured them through a number of low-budget films. All of these decisions might be right, but perhaps not quite yet.

Consolidation and reconsolidation is where therapy really earns its money, just as good management, good production, and good direction do. The point at which you feel free to act is often the point where you most need help continuing with the reinvention: finding out how to sustain yourself in ways you certainly didn't in the past, doing these things for real rather than in rehearsal. Psychotherapy should always be real, but the extent to which it can become a rehearsal of the future rather than a repetition of the past is worth thinking about carefully.

The business of long-term therapy costs money. Sometimes it can be the most valuable thing you will ever do to continue with psychotherapy beyond the point where it feels as if you need it. Within that, there is plenty of room for a psychotherapist to exploit the people they work with, continuing well beyond the point where it is truly necessary. Who knows what is truly necessary? That is a question that needs to be asked and talked about carefully, when it feels as if something needs to change.