The most crucial area in treating dually presenting adolescents is assessment; while the presence of psychiatric symptoms may be indicative of a secondary substance abuse disorder, it appears as if the opposite may also be true. Individualized treatment planning may be facilitated by inclusion into five basic categories of relationships between chemical dependency and psychiatric disorders. This author believes that the adolescent dual diagnosis treatment system is being over-utilized and the efficacy of these treatments is yet unproven. Closer attention needs to be paid to standardizing assessment and diagnosis procedures, to studying treatment efficacy for this population, to scrutinizing frequency of admissions and average length of stay for adolescent dual disordered patients, and to making facilities accountable for explaining or correcting this discrepancy. 43 references (Author abstract modified)