After Successful Therapy

What happens to a person after he or she completes a successful therapy process? 

Change.

Among other things, a mindshift. From unreality to reality. From dysfunctional to functional. From unhealthy to healthy.

But here's a silent consequence of getting well. It can put every relationship in jeopardy of a major life and mind shift.

Terrence, for example, came out of years of alcoholism and sexual addiction. His two years of intensive sessions was part of the key to his sobriety of 10 consecutive years after he ended Therapy work. 

He did become a new man. Terrence was a completely different person than he was before he entered therapy.

But, as it turned out after his successful therapy, Terrence has noticed that things between him and his wife and former friends have become somewhat more distant.

He could no longer join his wife and friends in their drinking sprees. He found that he has become unable to adapt himself to their usual small talks, evasions, and shallow relationships they once had.

As noted author and psychologist Dr. Jeffrey Kottler put it, one successfully "therapeutized" 

is presented with the challenge to "straddle both worlds, learning to become patient and accepting of relationships ..."

Terrence realizes this need for him to be more understanding. Even joining his wife and friends for fun - to a certain extent. He accepts and understands that they're products of culture and Family ways.

But at the same time, Terrence yearns to go deeper. Much deeper. To enjoy the kind of wholeness, awareness, and intimate experiences he received in therapy extended to those he loves the most.

This is fair guideline or warning for those getting better and whole in therapy. If you don't bring your family, spouse, and friends on board, you will likely leave them behind.

It's like what the Apostle Paul says of Christians, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come; the old has gone, the new is here!" (2 Cor 5:17).

Think larger as you heal.