The immediate effect of reframing on client attitude in family therapy.

This study focused on the process of therapy with families of delinquent adolescents. Results demonstrated differential effects of functional family therapists' behaviors on family members' positivity-negativity as a function of family member role (i.e., mother, father, adolescent). More important, the data indicated that only following a therapist reframe was the adolescent's average response in the nonnegative range ; following all other classes of therapist statement (i.e., frame, acknowledgment, pacer, prompt, other) the adolescent's average response valence was negative. Given the clinical importance of resistance and negativity in first therapy sessions, these results support the utility of (positive) cognitive restructuring techniques with conflicted, negative families.