The Characteristics, Identification, and Applications of Frames

FRAMES (Fundamental Repetitive And Maladaptive Emotion Structures) provide a multipurpose research tool for assessing psychopathology, the psychotherapeutic process and, finally, the treatment outcome. We outline the clinical and theoretical assumptions that underlie and motivate FRAMES, along with the aims of an ongoing research program. We describe four methods for identifying FRAMES, ranging from our original justified intuition (Method A) to the present systematic set of reliable procedures (Method D). The reliability of necessary judgments, the validity of findings and the strengths and weaknesses are discussed. The FRAMES approach has been successfully used to analyze verbatim transcripts of recorded psychoanalytic and psychotherapy sessions and videotapes and coded records of the behavior of three-year-old children. By applying the FRAMES method to an initial evaluation interview, we demonstrate its usefulness on quite different clinical material.