ABSTRACT
Frames is a concept that relates to the whole set-up for therapeutic work. The outer frame pertains to the setting: it brackets off space and time in order to provide a safe environment for anything that needs to be brought forth from the client’s inner world, however difficult and dangerous it might feel to both the client and the therapist. In psychodynamic theory, the ideas that a client has about the therapist are called transference. They come from the client’s inner world and are not characteristic of the therapist, and the therapist can easily identify them as “strange.” Countertransference can give people central insights about their materials, especially those that are not easily put into words. Containing adverse experience can be extremely difficult, and while working in Sarajevo the author felt that she had to have something very concrete to hold on to.
