Imposter syndrome’s complicated relationship with the pandemic

Do you believe “if I can do it, anybody can”? Do you agonise over even the smallest flaws in your work? When you do succeed, do you secretly feel like you fooled them again? If the answer to these is a resounding yes – then you may be experiencing symptoms of imposter syndrome, and you are not alone.

Dr Valerie Young, internationally recognised imposter syndrome expert, author and speaker, defines the syndrome as “the belief that we are not as capable, talented, or qualified as others think we are, and we are going to be found out.” These internal convictions defy all logic, but something sinister inside us still tips the scales in favour of the syndrome.

In her popular TED talk, Dr Young tells an audience about a highly qualified administrator who couldn’t believe she had been given the job. “Once she got there,” she says, “she found out the hiring committee had come directly from a wine function.” Despite her glowing qualifications, the administrator immediately believed the HR department being intoxicated was the only possible explanation for her new employment.

Back in 1982, Dr Young had convinced herself of similar logic. She was four years into her graduate programme and, by her own admission, procrastinating on writing her dissertation. One day, in a class at the University of Massachusetts, one of her fellow graduate students read an article aloud that simultaneously made her ears prick up and her head nod in agreement. The piece of research was titled, The Impostor Phenomenon in High Achieving Women, written by two psychologists in Georgia, Dr. Pauline Rose Clance and Dr. Suzanne Imes. “Oh my god!” she thought, “they’re talking about me!”

“I had a tremendous sense of relief to discover there was a name for these feelings,” Dr Young shares, recalling how every head in the room also began to nod. The phenomenon became the focus of her doctoral research, and her findings evolved into the basis for a workshop called “Overcoming the Imposter Syndrome: Issues of Competence and Confidence for Women”, which she co-led with fellow graduate student Lee Ann Bell. Reserving a small hotel room and dolling out a few flyers, they hoped a handful of women would turn up. To their astonishment, 40 women walked through the door.

“We were stunned by the turnout,” Dr Young says, recalling how she knew they were onto something. Her life’s work then became consumed by the idea, determined to find out just how many so-called imposters there were out there.

Nearly 40 years on, the syndrome continues to strike. At least, until the pandemic threw a curious spanner in the works. According to a recent survey by Totaljobs, Covid-19 and remote working has caused a 57% decrease in recorded rates of imposter syndrome compared to 2019.

This is the case for copywriter and freelance writer James Cullen. “The pandemic has made me feel less of an imposter,” he says, having previously played down his freelance projects to anyone who asked. “Working from home played a big part,” he says, feeling that his work was “legitimised”. But there is still more to these numbers than first meets the eye. The same survey found at 71% of respondents who were furloughed, laid off or made redundant continued to experience the syndrome. This lines up more accurately with what Dr Young has witnessed. “During this time where so many white collar workers are working remotely I’m seeing impostor feelings off the charts,” she explains.

Alice Weetman, a recent MA English graduate, is one of these people. Graduating into the 2020 employment market, her imposter syndrome soared. “I had never had real trouble securing interviews in the past,” she says, but when rejections began appearing in her inbox she started to ask herself, “can I actually write this on my cover letter? Can I actually do this?” It was her, she convinced herself, not the global pandemic. Trying to secure her next move, she found herself in the aforementioned survey’s 71%.

“No matter how hard I work, there’s a nagging feeling it isn’t enough,” Weetman confesses down the phone. Experiencing the symptoms that Dr Young isolated from an early age, she often felt them surge at university. “In my first English lecture they began discussing theory. I could see a lot of people turning to the person next to them saying that they knew this or that about the philosophy – and I didn’t. I remember thinking what have I done?”

Arriving at her first supervisor meeting, she was convinced she would hear the words “we don’t think this course is right for you”. They had found her out, an imposter before their very own eyes. This, however, is far from how the session panned out; her supervisor went over standard welcome chat and questions. Soon, the imposter logic seeped into her work life too.

As Weetman began a job working in a local cafe, she joined baristas who had been working for years. “I felt undercover,” she says, “always on edge as if I was about to be found out.” Despite knowing it was irrational, she made the coffee each day fearing someone she served would turn around and say, “you’re not a real barista! You can’t even do a swan latte!”

For Patrick Hook-Willers, his imposter syndrome symptoms have “waxed and waned over the course of the pandemic”. After all, “the world was on fire” and the sting of his imposter syndrome was briefly diluted. But now, working on freelance graphics projects, he feels like a fraud. “When I work in a group, I convince myself that people carry me through,” he says. As for coping mechanisms, he avoids LinkedIn like the plague. “Seeing other people progress online last year, while waiting to hear on a few projects was difficult. It was then I began to question if what I had achieved before was actually that good?”

Imposter syndrome can be a difficult thing to talk about as the brain tricks you into thinking your experience of it isn’t even valid enough to raise in discussion. But when Weetman confided her thoughts and anxieties to her mum, boyfriend and a friend, she was shocked to find all of them strongly related to the feeling too.

“Psychologists are saying the way to overcome imposter syndrome is to just keep talking,” says Dr Young, but she is not convinced. In her TED talk she ponders, “I don’t know – anybody ever talk about how fat they feel? Does it make you feel thinner?”

Dr Young’s research has found that 70% of people suffer from feelings of imposter syndrome. Those who never feel imposter syndrome are no more intelligent or capable, they only judge situations differently. This is the key – to retrain the brain. This way it becomes a bad day, rather than years of feeling less-than. As Dr Young puts it “instead of having an imposter life, you can have an imposter moment.”