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Impostor Syndrome

Introduction
The Impostor Syndrome - Do you feel like a fraud?

The answer to this question would be in the affirmative for most people at one or more instances in their life. But the focus of this report is mainly on those individuals who suffer from an extreme form of this syndrome and go through their lives perpetually feeling like a fake. The same factors, consequences and strategies to overcome the syndrome would be applicable to people suffering from the impostor syndrome to a lesser degree as well.

This phenomenon has been investigated scientifically only relatively recently, with studies beginning in the seventies, with findings that the people who suffered from this syndrome had significantly high levels of self-doubt and an inability to internalise their success (Clance & Imes, 1978). Some definitions of the impostor syndrome are:
“Imposter syndrome can be defined as a collection of feelings of inadequacy that persist even in face of information that indicates that the opposite is true. It is experienced internally as chronic self-doubt, and feelings of intellectual fraudulence.”1
“doubting and discrediting of one's abilities and achievements”2
The Characteristics
The imposter feelings can be divided into three sub categories:
 Feeling like a fake: the belief that one does not deserve his or her success or professional position and that somehow other have been deceived into thinking otherwise. This goes together with a fear of being, “found out”, discovered or “unmasked”. People who feel this way would identify with statements such as: “I can give the impression that I am more competent than I really am.” “I am often afraid that others will discover how much knowledge I really lack”.

 Attributing success to luck: Another aspect of the imposter syndrome is the tendency to attribute success to luck or to other external reasons and not to your own internal abilities. Someone with such feeling would refer to an achievement by saying, “I just...