Basic Dimensions in Conscious Thought represents a major contribution, describing an empirically-validated method for analyzing the thematic content of narratives as a tool for comparative research in Anthropology, Cultural Psychology and Ethnopsychiatry. This first volume in the two volume series presents the Interpersonal Concerns Scoring System (ICSS), which is a comprehensive system of dimensions and categories for classifying thematic content found in narratives. The ICSS categories are discussed from both developmental-psychological and psychocultural perspectives. This is designed to facilitate the cross-cultural researcher or clinician's understanding of how normative or non-normative patterns of thematic concerns might be inferentially related to socialization processes (whether adaptive or pathogenic) that are found in particular sociocultural settings.