ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to adopt the perspective that developmental issues must be recognized in interaction between health experts and adolescents. This interactional perspective is already apparent in the very early process of communication between health experts and adolescent patients on diagnostic issues. Without doubt, diagnostic information is necessary for the prevention and treatment of illnesses as well as for the determination of factors contributing to health-risk behaviors. Three basic characteristics of the communication and interaction between health experts and patients deviate from everyday experience: asymmetric power relations, the fact that private information is not shared in a reciprocal way, and the possibility that the health expert may also violate physical privacy. Health diagnostics should always be multivariate and rely on physiological methods, systematic observations, tests, interviews, and self-ratings. Although this aspect is sufficiently considered in assessing psychological well-being, the application of psychological methods is still rare in medicine.
