Advice can be highly problematic interactionally, especially in pretest counseling sessions for HIV and AIDS where the advice concerns the already highly charged topic of sexual behavior. However, there is surprisingly little research examining the delivery and receipt of advice. Using detailed transcripts obtained during twenty-five pretest counseling sessions in a clinic that tests for HIV, this study examines the various ways that counselors deliver advice to clients and the ways that clients respond to that advice. Analysis concerns structures of advice giving that are collaboratively produced to maintain an ambiguity between the giving of advice and the giving of information. Implications of these findings both for counseling and for ethnography and conversation analysis are discussed.
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