Training through naming: A process of psychotherapist skill development utilizing recursive frame analysis

Recursive frame analysis (RFA) is both an advanced qualitative research method and a therapeutic tool that is used to map psychotherapy discourse. RFA tracks the therapeutic conversation to show how the therapy talk moves from one act to another. This paper describes the implementation of a training process for family therapy students in a family therapy clinic and the student therapists' experiences of learning through this process, called Naming the Session. We present the organic development of the training process, its roots in RFA, and the student therapists' perceptions of how Naming the Session impacted them as trainees. We further present how Naming the Session was useful in the growth of supervisors-in-training who were also a part of this training process.