Recovering behavioral design models from execution traces is not an easy task due to the sheer size of typical traces. In this paper, we describe a novel technique for achieving this. Our approach is based on filtering traces by distinguishing the utility components from the ones that implement high-level concepts. In the paper, we first define the concept of utilities; then we present an algorithm based on fan-in analysis that can be used for the detection of utilities. To represent the high-level behavioral models, we explore the Use Case Map (UCM) notation, which is a language used to describe and understand emergent behavior of complex and dynamic systems. Finally, we test the validity of our approach on an object-oriented system called TConfig.