There’s a saying in the 12-step community about people who want to get clean and sober: “You have to change your playground, your playthings, and your playmates.” This speaks to the need, when doing a 180 with one’s inner world, to make a corresponding clean break with the old lifestyle in the outer world.
Not all of us need to do something as dramatic as changing an entire lifestyle in the way someone getting clean and sober needs to. But people who are getting mentally healthier often wake up to the way choices and friends they once considered normal are no longer tolerable to them. It can seem disorienting and confusing: Why is it suddenly so hard to connect to all my old friends? It’s even more pronounced when it comes to beginning to date after getting out of a bad marriage. I have one client who put it this way when considering re-entering the dating scene: “I can’t tell if I’m more afraid of being left alone or being left with someone I hate.”
What is going on here? Does good therapy turn people into........