Hello lovely people!
We all have heard about Imposter Syndrome and it looks like every day it is everybody’s mouth. But do we really understand what it is, whether we have it or, most importantly, how to deal with it? This are the points that I want to discuss here and hopefully bring a bit of clarity in this noisy topic:
It is not a syndrome!
This phenomenon cannot be diagnosed as it is not included as a disorder in any Diagnosis and Statistical Manual (DSM). However it is very real, and well acknowledged and studied in the psychological community (there over 1,200 scholarly publications!!!). The “Impostor Phenomenon (IP)” was first identified by Dr. Pauline Clance and Dr. Suzanne Imes in 1974 it describes a psychological experience of intellectual and professional fraudulence (Clance and Imes, 1978; Matthews and Clance, 1985).
Surveys and studies find that up to 82% of the population have experienced it at some point in their life (Dena et al, 2020). It is also commonly known that this is more common in the female population. For example, KPMG did a survey across 750 female executives and found out that 75% of executive women identified having experienced IP at various points during their careers (Forbes, 2020).
But why does this happen?
The literature identifies three antecedents for IP: family/social, gender, and personality traits (Aparna and Menon, 2020). At the end of the day it all comes to bias and how we are affected by them. Our family and social environment will imprint biases onto us specially during our early years, and will condition how we will feel and react when facing intellectual or professional challenges. Gender is another obvious bias which we could say includes the social bias. One of the reasons for IP to be more common in the female population is because of the bias that conditioned us growing up and for the lack of female references in leadership roles. Finally, our character and how we are affected by our surroundings will also be key in building up or not this phenomenon.
How to identify it?
As mentioned earlier there are no diagnostic tools that can clearly identify it. However, there is a framework that can help explore if you might have imposter syndrome (Cuncic, 2021):
Do you agonise over the tiniest mistakes?
Do you attribute success to luck or other factors?
Are you very sensitive to even constructive criticism?
Do you feel like you will inevitably be found like a fraud?
Do you downplay your own expertise?
Things that you can do now
If some or all these questions resonate with you it might be possible that you might be experiencing IP. Sometimes it will be easier for someone else to notice these things from you, especially when other factors like depression are found in the mix.
If you have identified that it might be possible that you are suffering of IP and you want to do something about it, there are some tools that can help you overcome it or gradually improving it (Litner, 2020)(Simpkin, 2019):
Talking about it: Many times the fact of putting it into words can help us realise how unrealistic some thoughts and beliefs are.
Being aware: Sometimes just understanding what is happening to us, putting it in context and accepting it can help us identify when it is happening on our day to day and reframe our thinking.
Seek evidence: We can list by ourselves the reasons why those limiting beliefs are not true. And even better, we can seek out relevant feedback from people that we respect and with whom we don’t have an unconditional relationship. Sometimes we feel feedback from our closest ones to be the same as our own and take it for granted.
Make friends with your strength: This can be seen as an extension of seeking evidence. Once you understand what your strengths are, it is important that you frame them and metaphorically (or literally) frame them where you can easily access them. A very common practice is to write a letter to yourself explaining all the strengths and achievements that belong to you.
