This shift is not benign. By turning a developmental and contextual response into a personal deficiency, the term “impostor syndrome” more often obscures the very dynamics it is meant to illuminate. It reduces a complex and relational experience to an individual identity, detaching it from the cultural, organisational, and psychological structures that give rise to it. The result is a form of double-burden: individuals feel like impostors, and then internalise the label as proof of deficiency without identifying the underlying structures and doing the work of selfhood.
From a psychodynamic perspective, the experience described as “impostor syndrome” more accurately reflects the tension between the adapted self—developed to win approval and safety—and the authentic self, which often remains hidden or underdeveloped. D.W. Winnicott’s theory of the false self helps explain this. He wrote, “The false self has one aim: to hide the true self” (Winnicott, 1965). The feeling of being an impostor is not evidence of fraudulence—it is evidence of a deeper split between one’s inner self and outer performance.
More on performative and false self here:
Using the impostor label as an identity marker only compounds the problem. It becomes a defence, a narrative that justifies continued performance rather than invites integration. As clinical psychologist Valerie Young (2011) notes, the cultural emphasis on high achievement and perfectionism often reinforces the impostor experience, particularly in environments that reward appearance over authenticity.
What’s more, the original authors never intended the concept to become a universal pathology. In later interviews, Clance herself expressed concern over the way the term had been generalised, commercialised, and misused—often applied without the contextual grounding in familial and sociocultural dynamics that shaped the original research.
Unless we address the root causes—the relational histories, the perfectionist cultures, the performative norms—attempts to “treat” impostor syndrome will only reinforce it. Labels without inquiry become barriers to development.
The solution is not to fix the so-called syndrome, but to dismantle the performative structures—both inner and outer—that give rise to it. This begins with recognising the impostor feeling as a signal, not a sickness. It is the call of the authentic self, asking to be reclaimed, integrated, and brought forward.
Additional References
- Clance, P.R., & Imes, S.A. (1978). The Impostor Phenomenon in High Achieving Women: Dynamics and Therapeutic Intervention. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research & Practice, 15(3), 241–247.
- Winnicott, D.W. (1965). The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment. London: Karnac.
- Young, V. (2011). The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from the Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It. Crown Business.