Perhaps I used the term incorrectly. I don't mean "distance" to require someone to "flee" nor not admit its connection, nor do I regard naïvety as a failure.

In my field, the main journal used to be "Journal of Computer Documentation". It spun off from "American Documentation" in the early 1960s. The JCD title changed in the 1970s to "Journal of Chemical Information and Computer Sciences" because "documentation" - a 1920s term - was considered already old-fashioned by the 1960s, and the title didn't capture the new focus on computers, and the underlying principles of information science.

It then became "Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling" in 2005 because the 1990s showed how to apply those information techniques to make predictive models.

Each name change is a form of distancing itself from its previous focus as part of a shift to a new focus.

Or is "distance oneself" not applicable for that situation?

I think I probably got my wires crossed. By "distancing" I did indeed think you meant "pretend as best as possible previous work never happened in an attempt to protect your reputation", but that's not at all what you meant! Sorry about that.