The Impostor Syndrome

The Son of Man, René Magritte

He feels like he is a lie. An imposter. He could never actually live up to the image his aunt has of him in her imagination after years of praising his milestones, awards, and degrees. The one that matches the accomplishments he lists on his CV, that he sells to others in a job interview. He could never live up to this image, so he defends himself to others, and to himself especially. But he always carries with himself a simmering sense that the truth is: he is a fraud.

An impostor is a person who pretends to be someone else than he is in order to deceive others, maybe even himself, generally in the perspective of a fraudulent gain. This gain is generally connected to getting love, recognition, fame, status, or some practical advantage. The impostor syndrome is characterized by the feeling, legitimate or not, of being a fraud. It indicates the sentiment of being an existential fake. It is generally felt as an unpleasant experience, since it implies a certain degree of discomfort and alienation from oneself, a deep sensation of dissatisfaction. 

We distinguish two types of such impostors: the circumstantial one, and the ontological one. 

Circumstantial Imposture

The circumstantial one undergoes this experience, this psychological complex for personal historical reasons. The basic dynamic of it is connected to receiving high praise, generally in childhood, which indirectly inculcated a strong ego ideal, a high idea of the self, and at the same time a permanent doubt about the reality or possibility of this “greatness”. Simultaneously, one receives an assertion of greatness, the obligation of greatness, and the constant insecurity about the reality of this greatness. Thus, parents who keep excessively praising their children under the guise of boosting their self-confidence produce at the same time an ambitious ego ideal and the fear of failing for not being up to the mark. This is inevitable, since the external reality of diverse experiences will permanently remind the growing child that he is not up to par in relation to what he was told, since he will obviously periodically fail or meet people who are better than him in whatever competition he feels engaged in. More perversely, any confirmation of his greatness will always be received with a high degree of suspicion, since this person has developed the strong and rational belief that he was initially lied to. More dramatically, such a person can develop the idea that he does not deserve to be loved, since the love he initially received was based on an illusion or a scam. Therefore, when he will receive attestation of love from someone else, he will either think it cannot last since the “lover” is being fooled and he will necessarily be disillusioned at some point. Or the subject will suspect this person cannot be truthful, he is just trying to manipulate him in order to obtain something illegitimate. Therefore the “impostor” lives a life of fear, instability and insecurity, where everyone is involved in some manipulatory scheme. As well, as with the parents, when facing the manifestation of love or recognition, there will be the contradictory attitude of being satisfied with this attestation, and being dissatisfied, angry and even scornful toward those who are engaged in this operation of deceit, because they are either lying or being merely stupid if they are sincere in their approval or affection. The poor lover will therefore not understand the shift of moods of the impostor he loves, surprised by his unpredictable irritation or anger. The subject is in fact convinced that he is merely playing a role of “greatness”, just pretending, as an actor would do, or the way children play doctor or teacher. Alternatively, he will go along with it, acting proudly or arrogantly, ceaselessly trying to show or prove his greatness, often overplaying it, what can be called the maniac side, or he will be exhausted of this permanent game of perception and calculations, he will give up and yield to what he considers the reality, thus ceding to depression or resentment.  One can lament that parents ignore this phenomenon, but we should understand that the poor parents have a hard time relinquishing the idea that their child is the eighth wonder of the world, for their own existential reasons: he is their ultimate chance of greatness. 

Arrogance

Arrogance is probably one of the most common manifestations of impostor syndrome. The arrogant person is one who has haughty and insolent manners, excessively so, lacking basic respect and recognition for others. Such a behavior reveals an exaggerated sense of one's own importance, status or abilities. But there again, we will maintain the hypothesis that such a person cannot really and doubtlessly believe what he is trying to show or prove. Either because willy-nilly reason cannot be stopped and accomplishes its critical work within the mind of the subject, or because diverse events and phenomena take care of undermining such wishful thinking. With any slight psychological distance this internal reality will be obvious to the external observer, but most people being themselves affected by internal discrepancies and lack of trust in themselves, what is commonly called “lack of self-confidence”, they will miss the point when confronted to the arrogant individual. They will inadvertently credit his outward behavior, they will take it at face value because they will feel hurt or insulted: it will activate and reveal their own insecurities, therefore granting power to the arrogant individual, who badly needs to be believed by others since he has doubts about himself. 

If he is told, the imposter will deny his own arrogance, since it is too difficult for him to recognize it, psychologically and cognitively. But there is a tragic irony: those around him can see that the arrogance thinly veils the need to prove, to himself and others, that he is worthy of his own self-respect and their respect. As we already said, this fighting, survival mode, is clearly visible to those capable of looking, for those who know how to look. Although, if for common sense it is obvious that under such a display of “confidence”, this person has some difficulties with himself, those who are caught in their own fears and preoccupations will easily miss this dimension. In fact, arrogance is for this reason a strategy of preemption: one acts arrogant as an attempt to hide one’s weakness and failure, an important feature of the imposter syndrome. Putting down others is therefore an important part of trying to survive, as one cannot naturally and confidently stand above others, as he in fact is suspicious about himself. Thus, the most tempting strategy is to lower others, systematically. 

Here, we should distinguish confidence and arrogance, which are easily confused, by both the actor and by the observer. As a first comment we should state that the confident person is at ease with himself, he is rather at peace and joyful, he can be friendly and empathetic, at least he is concerned with others. As well, the confident person looks for trustworthy interlocutors, and he will respect them. If you feel good about yourself, you will want a good sparring partner for dialogue, just like in martial arts, you want to be challenged and dealing with a strong partner is more joyful, risky and interesting. An insecure person is not animated by joy; he is not preoccupied with intellectual interest or with being challenged, as his main preoccupation is with protecting his identity. His ideal situation of interaction is not actual interaction with others, but when he has “won” over them, and the weaker another person is, the higher the chances are to win. Thus he has to browbeat his interlocutor. With arrogance one has to “show” to others, one needs to be “seen” in order for himself to be convinced, since one has a hard time to believe his own worth. Arrogance is a feeling of superiority, or a wish of superiority, coupled with fear, with strong insecurity and doubt. That is why the arrogant posture takes on exaggerated forms, in order to make one’s worth more visible, more confirmed. It is only through the eyes of the other that the arrogant can receive validation, in order to believe in the image he has constructed for himself. But the image is fragile, it is  in permanent need of reaffirmation from the other to continue existing in its exaggerated, bloated state.

Even if what the arrogant claims is relatively true, that he is superior in some aspect to the other person he speaks to, the mere fact that he undergoes the need to express it at the expense of his interlocutor, who might feel hurt or humiliated, reveals a profound weakness of the self, a painful crevice in the soul. He is like a child bragging to his friends, a sort of narcissistic complacency. Therefore, objectively, whatever superiority he is claiming is actually undermined or annihilated by his superficial need for ostentatiously displaying himself, for peacocking. Although the problem for the listener is to assess if what seems like arrogance is actually a neurotic and compulsive behavior, or if it is rather the expression of a true self-confidence. But like we had said before, if he himself is anxious about his own self, he will not be able to make such judgment and assess the difference: he is too preoccupied with his own inadequacies. 

Addiction

One noticeable aspect of the circumstantial impostor syndrome we should mention before moving on from this type is the addictive dimension of the phenomenon. Faced with his own meaninglessness or nothingness, the person who undergoes an impostor feeling permanently “needs” - although it can be called an acquired taste - the reiteration of those words and actions that were the initial cause of his problem, just like with a drug addiction for example. Even though, again like in drug addiction, he remains rather conscious of the pathological or illusory dimension of this addiction. It is possible that in growing up, he recognized the unhealthy relationship and matured out of it; yet another source of flattery might easily reawaken the addiction. He needs the soothing caress of those words that made him feel great and wonderful, he needs to hear the confirmation of his own worth, to hear the praise of his deeds, the value of his being, a very narcissistic form of requirement. The more he feels worthless, the more he needs the confirmation, the more he obtains this confirmation, the more he will become suspicious of it, or bored, and feel worthless. 

At the same time, those with imposter syndrome give power by default to those who give them any attention, since they are craving for this attention. That is how they can as well get manipulated, for diverse reasons. Either because the praiser consciously wants to obtain something from his victim, a basic manipulatory technique, in seduction for example, or simply because he himself has a compulsive need: the need to be needed, what can be called codependency. This phenomenon is common in familial relations, between parents and children, or within a couple. As well, by praising “our own”, we are indirectly praising ourselves. Thus this addiction often starts very early, as this admiration was provided so readily and frequently in youth. And if while growing up the child somewhat realizes the illusion of it, even when it becomes skeptically received, it is yet at the same time craved. This phenomenon is commonly occurring in love relations, where one likes to hear “the words”, hyperbolical and excessive, but still pleasant to the ear and the mind. If the phenomenon is understandable, its excess is problematic. And strangely enough, the more someone has a hard time believing he can be loved, the more he needs to be praised, while he at the same time becomes very suspicious about those praises, and even angry at them. In a preconscious way the addiction and its fictitiousness are somewhat perceived. As well the imposter recognizes the power one can take over them by giving this craved recognition. They are skeptical of the recognition itself, but also suspicious of the power the praiser takes as someone who grants them recognition: they fear manipulation.  A bit of recognition leaves the imposter wanting more, it awakens the addiction. And the praiser is the “drug dealer”, who has the power, since the drug dealer decides how, when, and how much of the recognition is given. The praiser, offering recognition, necessarily is also the one who withholds recognition, and he can be hated for it, including in a love relation. Therefore we should not be surprised at the endless and powerful dimension of begging and expectations manifested by the individual endowed with a feeling of imposture. 

Ontological Impostor

The ontological impostor syndrome is a more fundamental scheme, a basic human experience, that one must identify and accept, otherwise it can as well turn into a more painful and pathological pattern. It can be defined as the latent feeling, periodically conscious, of every human being, perceiving his life as meaningless, boring, vain or illusory, but who nevertheless forces himself to play the game of everyday life by pretending to believe in it. Let us explain. It is connected to the principle of nothingness, rather inevitable and constitutive of our own humanity, an anthropological invariant. Man has access to reason, which allows him to think the infinite, a power which makes him think the infinite, a form or other of the absolute, be it the Cosmos, God, Humanity, Truth, Justice or else. But this infinite is always twofold and dialectical. Nothingness, the negative absolute, as the opposite of the positive absolute, its counterpart, is therefore inevitable and necessary. Opposites are born together, as we know from most religions and philosophies. Therefore, our mind is naturally oscillating between those two extremes to which we are attracted: they establish the axis on which we think all things, within which we naturally place ourselves. Our identity therefore hangs in the void within this huge ontological gap, somewhat vertiginous. Unconsciously, we place and constitute ourselves within this metaphysical or psychological map. And even though we are caught up in the daily chores of our little empirical life, we cannot help looking up or looking down, with a mixed feeling of fear and joy, anguish and ecstasy. Religious schemes are explicit representations of such a pattern, they generally produce a narrative that makes this ontological principle understandable, and usable to guide one’s life, where we can feel integrated and legitimized, for example through the idea of an ulterior life. Although, with the abandon of religion, the individual becoming its own finality and reality, as Kant described it, this fundamental framework is somewhat lost and can easily produce a pathological effect, unless it finds another way to become conscious, for example through philosophical thinking.  The purely psychological explanation of the phenomenon seems to us quite inadequate to deal with this issue, although it can somewhat help to tone down the anxiety. But most people try to ignore this issue by remaining focused on their immediate empirical preoccupations, what we call survival mentality, a principle that can more or less generally function, with its ups and downs. 

Those metaphysical considerations are paradoxical. On one side, we look at the positive absolute, with its power and beauty, we can admire it and benefit from this contemplation. Or we can regret our incapacity to reach such sublime reality. We therefore look down on ourselves, as a miserable creature, a sinner, a sad mortal, a weak and vulnerable being. Our glance is as well attracted therefore to the negative absolute, to which we are just as much attracted, which often seems even closer to us. It is easier and more natural to us to think we are nothing rather than thinking we are God. The latter is possible and tempting, but it is hard to maintain, since the reality principle always pursues us with its harsh reminders. And when we look at the infinite universe, at the immensity of knowledge, at the immensity of human struggles, at our daily difficulties with life, it is hard to conserve a feeling of greatness: we cannot avoid realizing how limited and meaningless our little being is.  Therefore, all our endeavors to exist in this infinite background, our desire to believe in ourself and our own significance, can easily appear as illusory and fraudulent, as a mere shadow, in spite of all our efforts to “make it”, or to “fake it”. How can we not periodically think that this busy life we lead is nothing more than a Sisyphean task, permanently rolling up a stone that will eternally fall, existence being a mere punishment. We are as meaningless as those ants we observe, going back and forth in tight columns, carrying some measly bread crumb to some unknown destination, that someone could destroy with a simple thumb gesture on an insecticide spray. But we pursue our endeavors, trying to avoid those depressing thoughts, although they are tenacious and remain in the background of our minds, eternally witnessing our pretense and deceit when we proceed in our daily routines. What will be left when we die? A terrible question we prefer to avoid, although it cannot be avoided. At least, if we faced it, we could reconcile ourselves with our own finitude, but since we prefer to conceal this reality, we know in the bottom of our hearts that we are impostors, a healthy reminder of reality. 

For example, a true Christian always feels like an impostor: he preaches faith in the good when he knows he is a sinner, since he never really does what he preaches, he will remain conscious of his own shortcomings. Paradoxically, if he does not feel like an impostor, then he is really an impostor: he is basking in his feeling of good conscience, being sincere about his own goodness, without any authenticity. After all, how can he deny the reality of the original sin. We could at this point insert a conceptual difference between faith and belief: the first knows the anguish of doubt, the second is self-satisfied. And this phenomenon is true for any scheme endowed with a moral ideal.

Read more in the book Being and Circumstances found on the IPP website.