Imposter Syndrome By Any Other Name Is Bravery
Transcriber: Miraya Mittal
Reviewer: Alexey S.
Suddenly, years ago, I began
following a few very dynamic
and well known self development gurus.
I also subscribed to a few
of their platforms,
and almost immediately, I got bombarded
with messages, telling me
I had this horrible affliction
called “imposter syndrome”.
Apart from it seeming a bit rude,
I didn’t know what it was at the time.
I’m a physician, who trained
in a biopsychosocial
or holistic approach to
health and wellness,
so to have what was being reported
as this pervasive psychological
derailment meant
I had something new to study.
I quickly discovered that imposter
syndrome is not in the Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
or the DSM-5, as we call it.
This is what we in medicine use
to diagnose psychological disorders.
I dug deeper and I studied more
and I learned that in 1978.
Clinical psychologist Dr. Pauline Clance
and Dr. Suzanne Imes coined
the phrase ‘imposter phenomenon’
when describing fear,
self-doubt and feeling like a fraud
in high achieving women.
They concluded that impostor feelings
developed even in the face of success,
especially in the face of success.
Doctors claims, and it was deduced that
impostor feelings develop
with stereotypes and prejudice
or internalized and further internalized.
When the success the women experienced is
incongruent with societal expectations
and further confirmed by the negative
messages women received along their path
to that success. The more I studied,
the less real imposter
syndrome became to me.
Assigning the term imposter to feelings
rather than to its true meaning
of intentionally defining immediately
lends itself to mislabelling.
Feeling like a fraud doesn’t
make an imposter.
Acting like a fraud does. So just
by labelling feelings as impostor,
anything immediately reveals
its inaccuracy.
I’m not saying that feelings aren’t real.
They are. So are their consequences.
But the diagnosis is not. In order to
be an impostor, intention matters.
The only intention in the case
of high achievers is to reach
a higher goal, to better themselves, and
the lives of those around them.
In any other circumstance,
when a person excels time and time again
in the face of fear, self-doubt,
or when feeling like a fraud,
it’s the epiphany of strength, courage
and bravery.
By regarding fear, self-doubt
and feeling fraudulent as a syndrome,
we pathologize what is a normal
part of personal expansion.
Nervousness in a new situation,
fear of failing, self-doubt
when facing difficulty,
anxiety in places requiring your
psychological protection.
We have all experienced this
in our journey to grow.
However, in time, and in public discourse,
imposter phenomenon became
imposter syndrome
and assigned to women and men
in any marginalized group,
commonly subjected to prejudice
and negative stereotypes.
But changing phenomenon to syndrome
shifts the development of
imposter feelings to the individual,
instead of those feelings
being created within a societal context
as Clance and Imes had intended.
I am black.
I am a woman.
I am a physician in a country
where only two percent of all physicians
are black women.
And I’m giving a TEDx talk.
I am at this very moment,
a perfect example of someone who should
have imposter syndrome, but I don’t.
And this isn’t by accident.
I grew up in a home with seven
brothers and sisters,
and anyone from a large family can tell
you getting either parent alone is rare.
So, when I was eight years old,
not only was it rare,
but also created one of the most memorable
and pivotal moments in my life.
I discovered that while everyone else
was watching morning cartoons,
I could have my father all to myself.
On those Sunday mornings,
I would sit on the end of my
parents bed, just chatting away,
usually to the back fold of the NRA news.
But more often, he’d be scratching
equations on his signature yellow notepad.
And it wasn’t that my father ignored me.
He just wasn’t always listening.
And I didn’t notice.
And even if I had noticed,
I wouldn’t have cared.
My father was a God in our house.
He was as kind and generous
as he was all-knowing.
And to 8 year old Miss Happy End – me –
he was all powerful and I was
powerful by proximity.
Then one day I went to my usual
Sunday morning check
and dad wasn’t there.
He was gone.
Not gone on a business trip
or gone to surprise us with early
morning doughnuts.
Just gone.
What followed is now blurred
by trauma in time.
I do remember being told he was in
the hospital with colon cancer.
And I remember the bottom
of my world falling out.
And then one day, like magic,
dad walks through the door, with his
chocolate skin and his deep dimple chin
and his eyes twinkling when he smiled.
And my world was finally back to normal.
Sometime later, I sat in my usual
Sunday morning spot,
for our usual Sunday morning chat.
But this time, there was no barrier.
Just dad’s truly undivided attention.
I asked him a lot of questions.
He answered each one very carefully
and in a way I could understand.
He spoke with such awe about the
doctors who saved his life.
And I listened with so much appreciation.
I said at that moment I was going
to be a doctor when I grew up.
And I meant it. I never wavered
from that declaration.
And my father never wavered in his support
in making me believe I could do it.
Of course then, I didn’t
know that my goal of becoming
a doctor went against negative stereotypes
for little black girls in 1973,
nor that my father’s encouragement acted
as a shield, when my goals later
met others’ prejudice.
And for those of you doing the math,
I’ll save you some time.
Eight years old in nineteen seventy three
makes me fifty six years old today.
I know, it’s so hard to believe,
but as I was saying,
what a father’s encouragement was
my greatest protection.
When a premed adviser told me
that for people like me,
getting into medical school
would be difficult,
but getting through would
be almost impossible.
One called my father dispelled the self
doubt before it could creep in,
when middle school classmates
whispered that my mission was
to meet diversity quotas. Before I could
internalize what they said,
my father reminded me that my skin color
did not pass my test and board exams.
The feelings assigned to imposter syndrome
are created with seeds of doubt,
and are planted in the minds of the
unaware and the unprotected.
And those feelings are then
projected inwardly to fester.
In medicine, we don’t call
that a syndrome.
We called it an infection.
If searching the Internet
and the nine million
items that return in under a
second is any indication.
A lot of people claim imposter syndrome.
Ethan Kross is a University
of Michigan psychologist
and neuroscientist, who specializes
in emotional regulation.
In his book “Chatter: The Voice in Our
Head,
Why It Matters, and How to Harness It”
he states that the silent conversation we
have with ourselves influence how we
live our lives. And that critical,
negative thoughts and emotions can turn
our introspection into a curse.
Kross also states that when our brain
is not occupied with other tasks,
talking to ourselves is our default mode.
And when we talk to ourselves, we listen.
He emphasized the negative
introspection, effects performance,
our decision making, our relationships,
our happiness, our health in jeopardy.
What we say to ourselves matters.
Claiming imposter syndrome becomes either
a self-fulfilling prophecy by sabotage
or perpetual trauma by achievement
to the next level.
Do we call soldiers who are afraid
in battle imposters?
Do we say a child has a syndrome,
who is afraid and full of self-doubt on
their first day of kindergarten?
I’m not saying there aren’t those with
true delusions of inferiority, who believe
the world sees them as someone they think
they are not, or others with paranoia,
whose lives are disrupted by fear
and everything they gain will be snatched
away by the powers that be.
But what we assign to imposter syndrome
are not the extreme cases of delusion
and paranoia, but instead
the nervousness, insecurities,
doubt and fear as we all feel
when growing and reaching
a higher level of achievement.
If we stop telling ourselves we have
imposter syndrome? We don’t have it.
It’s that simple.
But simple isn’t always easy,
except with practice.
So, practice telling yourself you’ve
earned the promotion.
Practice telling yourself your degrees
are symbols of your hard work.
Practice telling yourself as supervisors
praise reflects your performance,
that it is well deserved.Practice telling
yourself that no matter, what others think
of you, what you think about
yourself matters most.
So as you continue to excel
in your spaces,
in spite of feeling nervous or afraid
or wondering if you belong
or feeling like you don’t.
Instead of calling yourself what
you are not – a fake, a fraud,
an impostor with a syndrome,
reframe your thoughts to celebrate who
you really are. Strong, courageous.
And brave.