What happens if we don’t suppress contradictions within ourselves, but instead look closely? Insights into why and how we can benefit from it.
We often have the feeling that we have to react to everything in some way immediately, or that an impulse arises on its own – this is good, this is bad, this person is right, this person is wrong, and so on.
But you often can’t know for sure – and besides, it’s not necessarily good for us. Berlin psychotherapist Nesibe Kahraman explains why we should allow conflicting feelings and thoughts in the magazine “Psychologie Today” (current issue 11/2025).
Why enduring contradictions and forming opinions slowly helps
“If we can tolerate the fact that other people see things differently than we do or that certain realities are different than we imagined, we can regulate ourselves better emotionally,” says the author of the book “Everything that lies in between. The art of enduring inner contradictions and ambiguity.”
She gives an example: There is a separation in the family. Should you take a side straight away? No, just look first: “How about you don’t have an opinion straight away,” says Kahraman, “but let the conflict develop first?”
This also includes looking at yourself, “what you find inside yourself, what different feelings arise? Often I can’t do anything but try to differentiate mindfully.”
It’s about allowing that we always have two sides to us. “Part of me wants everything to stay as it is. Another part wants change,” says the psychologist. “Both aspects are allowed to exist in me, even if they are weighted differently. And in others too.”
Check-in with yourself
Kahraman advises “checking whether you are in either/or mode or whether you are able to think in terms of both/and”. This is a requirement that is important in the treatment of various mental illnesses, where it is important to also perceive shades of gray instead of harmful black and white thinking.
Allowing, recognizing and naming different thoughts and feelings without judging them is a central element of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and can also be helpful in everyday life.
Enduring ambivalence means remaining internally flexible – and this makes us more emotionally stable and enables a more “committed” approach to life, according to US psychiatrist Steven C. Hayes, who has developed ACT since the 1990s – precisely because we can make decisions and behave better, more authentically and in accordance with our values.
So: experiences of ambivalence are neither bad nor harmful. But if you don’t allow such contradictory feelings, that’s it – and you can even develop mental illnesses.
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