ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the difficulty that some clients have in tolerating their ambivalence and the complexity of their emotional experience. Related to the ideas of emotional perfectionism and pure mind described earlier, the client with intolerant of ambivalence believes that they should feel only one way. This leads to rumination, a sense that one’s feelings are incomprehensible and indecisiveness. Of specific focus in this chapter are the cognitive biases that underpin indecisiveness due to ambivalence, such as dichotomous thinking, fortune telling, discounting the positives and labelling. Rather than view choice as risk vs. no risk, the therapist can help the client recognize comparative risks—that is, risk vs. risk.
