Yeah, I can definitely relate to this. Structure can be a really good thing, and to be without structure when you need it can be disastrous.

I went through a long period where my T was becoming more and more distant, more and more difficult to predict, and also less structured. In some ways this is a trigger for me, because it recalls a time in my life when I was quite self-destructive, and there were some things I knew my parents knew, but they never told me to stop. Part of me wanted to stop, part of me wanted to keep going because those self-destructive things provided temporary help, and part of me wanted to keep upping the ante just to see how far I'd have to go before they intervened.

So when things became obviously more and more difficult for me during this phase in therapy, I was going crazy. I would just show up and talk about stuff and it didn't seem to matter if I said "I just had the best day ever" or "I started cutting myself again and spent the weekend planning the perfect suicide." There was some difference in response, but it was very unreliable and I felt totally lost at sea.

I worry a little about the fact that you feel you need to run things by your therapist before you do them... he's not supposed to let you do that, because that's not really his role in your life. I totally get your feeling the need to do it, but I think you know it's not ideal, right?

And this is the same guy that lets you clean out your bank account to see him whenever, but never remarks on it? Also a little worrisome.

This might be his style, but that doesn't mean it has to be yours. Actually joining PC made me realize that I really needed a more interactive, soft-and-squishy kind of T than the one I had. I had gotten a LOT from my more traditional Freudian guy, but I needed something else at that point. I can describe what brought me to that point in more detail, but I'm already SO verbose I need to put the brakes on myself!

So absolutely, if your gut says you need something different, go for something different!

However, I was able to hang onto my T -- by telling him that this was not what I needed and I knew that a more interactive, relational approach existed, and I felt like I was always going to be on the verge of suicide if he kept pulling back from me, hitting that trigger over and over without ever addressing it or working through it. I found out, finally, that he was doing that because his training group wanted him to be more distant with me in a more traditional analytic style. He apologized for not standing up to them because it meant not standing up for my needs. Since then, we've had some serious bumps in the road but it has been MUCH better.

Tell your T what you feel, and insist that he takes you seriously. He might be able to accommodate you, but if he feels he shouldn't do that and you feel you need someone who does, it's reasonable to consider leaving. I really hope you don't have to though... it's hard to replace someone with whom you've built such a great rapport.