Distinguishing Between Fragility and Frailty
A Perspective on Men From One Man's Perspective
Scott Baum, Ph.D., ABPP, Bioenergetic Analyst (CBT), IIBA Faculty
As important as the modern developments in the field of human relations are, including ideas about empowerment, agency, and the power of pleasure and goodness to affect oneself and the world, the pressure to accomplish these states of being can be oppressive. It can also conceal the deep underlying fragility of those of us profoundly damaged by early and severe chronic relational trauma. And it can block those who are not afflicted in this way from knowing those who are, and also block them from knowing their own fragility. This presentation will explore the significance of fragility as a clinical and psychotherapeutic concept, and its meaning in that process.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After this presentation participants will be able to:
Distinguish between fragility as an enduring part of the human condition and weakness, which can represent deficiencies or limitations in attributes that might be stronger.
Develop ideas about the sources of fragility in themselves and their patients especially as it relates to the practice of psychotherapy.
Identify and relate to transference and countertransference dynamics that arise from feelings and states of fragility and influence the psychotherapy process.
Scott Baum, Ph.D., ABPP, Bioenergetic Analyst (CBT)
Scott Baum, Ph.D. ABPP has been a bioenergetic therapist for 50 years. Still striving to develop and maintain a unitary view and understanding of somatic and psychic structure and process, he continues in his primary work of studying himself and others using the tools of the psychotherapy process. This has necessitated a deep immersion in the depth of destruction of self and personality human beings are capable of inflicting, and so, the reality of our fragility at every level of our being.