Decision-Making
The Many Faces of Ambivalence
Ambivalence can be a trap, but we can also make it work for us.
Updated February 11, 2025 Reviewed by Margaret Foley
Key points
- Motivational interviewing (MI) views ambivalence as a state of internal conflict and indecision.
- The fastest and easiest strategies for reducing the discomfort of being ambivalent trap us in a vicious cycle.
- MI helps people escape this trap and resolve ambivalence in the direction of growth and change.
- New research on ambivalence can help us make being ambivalent work for us rather than against us.
It’s a universal human experience: feeling unable to choose between going on doing what we’ve been doing or making a change—in our drinking or drug use, diet or exercise, relationship or career. Ambivalence is a nemesis for us all at one time or another, and motivational interviewing (MI) draws on two well-known frameworks to help us understand and overcome its effects on our efforts to change and grow.
The “approach/avoidance” model describes the push-pull of internal conflict: wanting two different things but only being able to have one of them; being forced to choose between two different options that we don’t like; toughest of all, wanting and not wanting something at the same time. The “stages of change” model describes how we weigh the decisional balance when we’re contemplating a change: the costs of the change are on one side of the scale, the benefits are on the other, and until the “pros” unambiguously outweigh the “cons,” the scale doesn’t tip, and we can’t move forward.
Together, these models paint a picture of a state of internal conflict and indecision creating tension and stress. Naturally, we’re motivated to try to reduce the discomfort of being ambivalent. Our problem, though, is that the fastest and easiest ways are usually only short-term fixes.
One go-to strategy is to avoid the whole issue: Put it out of our minds, distract ourselves, and focus on something else. Unfortunately, sooner or later the dilemma reasserts itself and we’re right back where we started—only time has passed, and the need to make a choice may feel even more urgent.
Another strategy is to convince ourselves that there’s no need to change: “I’m fine the way I am; it’s not that bad!” But the disadvantages of going on doing what we’ve been doing don’t go away, so we end up feeling trapped in a way of living that doesn’t really work for us.
And then frustration begins to build—not just with the situation we’re in, but with ourselves. We wonder why we can’t just make a decision. We start asking if there’s something wrong with us and comparing ourselves to others who seem to have everything figured out. It can get pretty ugly: The one critic we can’t avoid or escape is the one inside our own heads.
Sometimes we try to quiet the inner critic with yet another ineffective strategy: leaping into action. “I’m going to change right now!” For a moment, stress is replaced by relief, and maybe even excitement. But the decision was impulsive; obstacles inevitably arise, and since we weren’t prepared for them our enthusiasm wanes. We crash back into the same-old, same-old, feeling like a failure and even more miserable than before, leaving sustained resolution of our ambivalence further away than ever.
The vicious cycle I’ve just described is a difficult trap to escape once you’re caught in it. (It’s even harder if you’re also on the receiving end of pressure from other people to make a change you don’t feel willing or able to make—a topic I’ll return to.) That’s what motivational interviewing was designed to do: help people who are stuck in stressful and self-defeating ambivalence by providing an empathic, affirming, empowering relationship in which they can tap into their own values, goals, and strengths to resolve ambivalence in the direction of growth and change.
In future posts I will explore the methods MI uses to accomplish this, why they’re effective (according to hundreds of research studies as well as the practical experience of thousands of MI practitioners), and how you can apply these methods in your own life.
But I will also go beyond the picture MI provides to explore the new perspectives offered by a burgeoning body of research on ambivalence over the past two decades. We’ve learned that ambivalence also comes in different forms from the one MI has made us familiar with: It can be hidden, causing us to feel stuck while having no idea why; it can be residual, plaguing us even after we’ve made a decision and committed to carrying it out.
Even more intriguing, it turns out that ambivalence is not always a distressing state from which we seek to escape. Being ambivalent can offer important benefits; we’ll explore what those benefits are and how to obtain them. At the same time, everyone is not equally able to capitalize on those benefits; we’ll seek to understand why, and how those who have only experienced ambivalence as a curse can be helped to experience its gifts.
In his book On Second Thought, Bill Miller strikingly suggested that being ambivalent can be seen as “the essence of being human.” Increasing our understanding of the myriad ways in which ambivalence plays a role in our lives and how to make it work for rather than against us will be the focus of this blog in the months to come.
References
Miller, W.R. (2022). On second thought: How ambivalence shapes your life (p. 162). Guilford Press.
Miller, W.R. & Rollnick, S. (1991). Motivational interviewing: Preparing people to change addictive behavior (pp. 15, 23). Guilford Press.
Miller, W.R. & Rollnick, S. (2013). Motivational interviewing: Helping people change. 3rd Edition (p. 158). Guilford Press.
Zuckoff, A. with Gorscak, B. (2015). Finding your way to change: How the power of motivational interviewing can reveal what you want and help you get there. Guilford Press.