DELIVERY AND RECEIPT OF SAFER SEX ADVICE IN PRETEST COUNSELING SESSIONS FOR HIV AND AIDS

Advice can be highly problematic interactionally, especially in pretes t counseling sessions for HIV and AIDS where the advice concerns the a lready highly charged topic of sexual behavior. However, there is surp risingly little research examining the delivery and receipt of advice. Using detailed transcripts obtained during twenty-five pretest counse ling sessions in a clinic that tests for HIV, this study examines the various ways that counselors deliver advice to clients and the ways th at clients respond to that advice. Analysis concerns structures of adv ice giving that are collaboratively produced to maintain an ambiguity between the giving of advice and the giving of information. Implicatio ns of these findings both for counseling and for ethnography and conve rsation analysis are discussed.