Prospective-dynamic approach: A conceptual proposal for adolescent health care

Adolescent health care has been structured around present-focused approaches: rights, holistic health, risk, and gender. These frameworks have led to substantial progress, but they share a limitation: they describe the adolescent's current state without offering a systematic way to project their future trajectory. We present the prospective-dynamic approach, a conceptual framework that integrates these frameworks with an explicit temporal orientation and draws on self-determination theory, motivational interviewing, the future-oriented perspective on adolescent development, the life-course perspective, and positive adolescent development. The prospective-dynamic approach is organized into five operational components-comprehensive assessment with a temporal perspective, exploration of desires and purpose, construction of trajectories and scenarios, definition of microgoals, and periodic follow-up checkpoints-which can be incorporated into routine consultations without replacing current approaches. This article discusses its rationale, clinical application, and limitations.