Sunday 28th June
Most people I work with reach the word imposter on their own.
They have read about it. They use it about themselves, usually with a slightly apologetic laugh. "I know, it's just imposter syndrome."
It is one of the more comfortable things you can call this feeling, and I think that is part of why it rarely helps.
The standard version of imposter syndrome describes a fear of being found out as less capable than people believe. The fix that follows is reassurance: look at the track record, count the qualifications, notice the distortion. For some people, that is enough. The feeling was a misreading of the evidence, and better evidence often settles it.
For the profile I often work with, it usually doesn't settle anything. You can lay out the whole record, agree with every line of it, and still feel like a fraud by Tuesday.
That is the tell.
When evidence repeatedly fails to move the feeling, you are probably not dealing with a belief about competence at all.
You might be dealing with shame.
It is the same shame I described a few weeks ago as Second Wave Shame, pointed this time at perceived competence rather than at a flat week.
The distinction between shame and guilt isn't mine, and it isn't new. Guilt is about something you did, whereas shame is a rigid belief about who you are. Guilt points at a behaviour, and a behaviour can often be repaired. Shame points at the self, and the self is much harder to argue with.
That's why I think what many people call imposter syndrome is often shame wearing a more acceptable name.
The fear isn't simply, "What if they discover I don't know enough?" It's, "What if they discover what I really am?" Those are very different questions. One is about knowledge. The other is about identity.
And once the problem becomes one of identity, reassurance has very little to work with. You can't out-argue a feeling that isn't making a claim about the evidence. It's making a claim about you.
Shame also has another trick that imposter syndrome doesn't get enough credit for. It changes behaviour.
If you believe you'll eventually be exposed, you naturally start protecting yourself. You don't ask the question because you should already know the answer. You don't apply for the bigger role because someone might realise you aren't ready. You don't volunteer for the stretch project because there is too much to lose if you fail publicly.
The irony is that those are exactly the experiences that build confidence and competence.
So the fear of exposure slowly undermines your learning. You seek less challenge, get fewer opportunities to grow, and develop more slowly than you otherwise would have. Eventually, shame points to the gap it helped create and says, "See? I told you."
A perfectly tidy self-fulfilling prophecy.
This is why the achievements don't land. The fraud feeling was rarely an evidence problem, and more proof has rarely been what quiets it.
The more useful thing to do is also smaller than it sounds. When the feeling arrives, ask what it is actually pointing at. Something you did, which you can look at squarely and put right. Or something you've decided you are, which rarely responds to that treatment and needs a different kind of attention.
The imposter label is the kinder diagnosis. Calling it shame is less flattering and, in my experience, closer to true. And the more accurate name is usually the one that points somewhere the work can actually reach.
As always, hold it lightly.
Shoni
Dr Shoni Marshall-Edwards
Clinical Psychologist · AHPRA PSY0004030165
Alba Psychology · Online · Australia and New Zealand