And treating it like one is part of why it persists.
Imposter syndrome — the experience of feeling like a fraud, of believing you don't deserve your success, of waiting to be 'found out' — is one of the most common experiences I hear about in the therapy room.
It is also one of the most misunderstood.
The standard advice is to build your confidence. To remind yourself of your achievements. To 'fake it till you make it.' And while there are times when these approaches help, they tend to treat imposter syndrome as a confidence deficiency — and it isn't.
What imposter syndrome actually is
Imposter syndrome is a response to environments that have, historically, given you reason to doubt your belonging. Research consistently shows it is more prevalent in women, in people of colour, and in those who are the first in their family or community to enter a particular professional space. This is not a coincidence.
When the environment sends you subtle or not-so-subtle messages that you're an outlier — when you look around a boardroom and see nobody who looks like you, when you're spoken over or your ideas are credited to someone else, when the informal networks you need to advance are closed to you — it's entirely rational to feel like you might not belong.
What therapy can offer
Therapy for imposter syndrome is not primarily about building confidence. It's about examining the beliefs that underpin the experience — where they came from, what they're protecting you from, and what it would mean to let them go.
It's also about contextualising the experience: understanding that what feels like personal inadequacy is often a rational response to a structural reality. That doesn't mean nothing can change — but change built on that understanding is more solid than change built on positive affirmations alone.
I work with women navigating imposter syndrome in both therapy and coaching. nataliemccandless.com