Re:How important is a tolerance of ambiguity?

I can't remember seeing any studies looking at the importance of tolerance for ambiguity in CBT therapists. However, it makes sense that this would be important. Certaintly my experience is that doing therapy involves plenty of uncertainty and ambiguity. My bet is that therapists who have a low tolerance for ambiguity will be too quick to choose one possibility as the "right" answer and will be inclined to stick rigidly to it even though interventions are proving to be ineffective.

Therapists who have a higher tolerance for ambiguity should be more able to consider a number of possibilities and wait until they accumulate an adequate amount of evidence before choosing one of the alternatives. Therapists with a higher tolerance for ambiguity should also be more willing to consider the possibility that they are wrong and therefore be quicker to catch their mistakes and fix them.

Unfortunately, I don't know of any data that bears on this.

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