Why Successful Women Still Feel Like Frauds and How to Understand Imposter Syndrome
- 5 hours ago
- 10 min read
Written by Paula Miles, BACP-Registered Psychotherapist
Paula Miles is a psychotherapist, BACP-registered, who helps people navigating anxiety, stress, and burnout. Drawing from her own experience in high-pressure corporate roles, and childhood trauma she offers a grounded, compassionate space for root-cause emotional change.
She has the qualifications. She has built the career, earned the title, and delivered results that others openly respect. She is, by any reasonable standard, good at what she does. Yet, she sits in meetings with a quiet, persistent certainty that, at some point, someone is going to notice. That the competence she has demonstrated is not as real as it appears. That she has somehow been getting away with something, and it is only a matter of time before the gap between who people think she is and who she actually is becomes visible to everyone in the room.
This is imposter syndrome, and it is one of the most common and least discussed experiences among high-achieving women. It does not announce itself loudly. It works quietly, running beneath the surface of an accomplished life, draining the confidence out of real achievements and replacing genuine pride with a persistent undercurrent of unease.
This article explores what imposter syndrome actually is, why it is so prevalent among capable women, how it connects to anxiety and perfectionism, and what it takes to begin to move beyond it.
What imposter syndrome actually is
The term imposter syndrome was first introduced in 1978 by psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes, specifically to describe an experience they observed in high-achieving women: a persistent inability to internalise success, combined with a fear of being exposed as less capable than others believed. In the decades since, the concept has expanded considerably, but the original observation has held up remarkably well under research scrutiny.
A meta-analysis published in Current Research in Behavioral Sciences in 2024, drawing on data from over 100 studies and more than 40,000 participants, confirmed that women consistently score higher than men on measures of imposter syndrome. A 2025 systematic review found that the global prevalence of imposter syndrome among health service providers sits at approximately 62%. Among high-achieving female executives specifically, some estimates reach as high as 75%.
What these figures describe is not occasional self-doubt. They describe a structured pattern of thinking in which a woman discounts her own competence, attributes her success to luck or circumstances rather than ability, and lives with a background fear that she will eventually be found out. The achievements are real. The credentials are real. The fear that none of it truly counts, and that she does not quite deserve to be where she is, is also real.
Why high-achieving women are particularly vulnerable
Imposter syndrome was originally identified in women, and the research continues to show that women experience it more frequently and more intensely than men. Understanding why matters, because the experience is not random. It reflects something specific about how women are conditioned to relate to success, to criticism, and to their own worth.
Many of the women I work with grew up in environments where being capable was expected but rarely acknowledged, where praise was conditional or absent, and where love and approval were available in response to performance rather than simply in response to existing. In those early environments, the child learns something quietly but durably: that her value is not inherent. That it must be proved, maintained, and protected through achievement. That she is only as safe as her last successful performance.
This is where the seeds of imposter syndrome are often planted. Not in adulthood, not in the competitive workplace, but much earlier, in the relational climate of childhood. The adult woman who cannot accept a compliment without immediately qualifying it, who cannot receive praise without suspecting it is not quite deserved, who works twice as hard as anyone around her and still does not feel like enough, is not irrational. She is carrying a very old and very understandable belief into a new context.
Imposter syndrome is not a thinking error. For many women, it is the logical conclusion of a childhood in which worth had to be earned rather than simply received.
A 2025 study found that imposterism is strongly positively correlated with rigid and self-critical perfectionism, a pattern that reinforces exactly this picture. The imposter and the perfectionist are often the same person, running the same underlying programme: that she is not quite enough, and that she must keep working to prove otherwise.
How imposter syndrome shows up in everyday professional life
Imposter syndrome rarely announces itself as such. Most women experiencing it do not think of themselves as having imposter syndrome. They think of themselves as realistic, or as someone who just needs to work harder, or as someone who got lucky and needs to make sure they do not let anyone down. The pattern hides behind the language of humility and diligence, which makes it very effective at perpetuating itself.
In practice, it tends to show up as over-preparation, the compulsive need to know everything before speaking, to rehearse before a meeting, and to triple-check before sending. It shows up as difficulty taking credit, an automatic deflection when someone compliments the work. It shows up as staying silent in a room where you have relevant knowledge, because the risk of being wrong feels greater than the benefit of being heard. It shows up as taking feedback personally in a way that cuts deeper than the comment warrants, because any evidence of imperfection feels like confirmation of the fear that has been running quietly all along.
Research from the Survey Center on American Life, published in 2023, found that young professional women are significantly more likely than young men to feel like imposters in the workplace, even when their objective qualifications and performance records are equivalent. The gap is not explained by ability. It is explained by what women have been taught, explicitly and implicitly, about whether their ability is really theirs to claim.
The connection between imposter syndrome and anxiety
Imposter syndrome and anxiety are closely related, and research confirms what clinical observation has long suggested. A 2025 cross-sectional study found that individuals with high imposter syndrome scores are nearly three times more likely to report moderate to severe mental health symptoms. Research also shows associations with depression, emotional exhaustion, and burnout. The two conditions do not simply coexist; they amplify each other.
The anxiety in imposter syndrome has a very specific quality. It is anticipatory. It is the constant, low-level vigilance of waiting to be found out. The nervous system, trained in childhood to monitor for the moment when approval might be withdrawn, carries that monitoring function into professional life. Every new project, every performance review, and every public presentation activates the same system: scan for evidence that you are not good enough. Find it wherever it can be found.
What makes this particularly exhausting is that success does not resolve it. If anything, success raises the stakes. Each achievement creates a new and higher standard to maintain, and the more visible the success becomes, the greater the perceived risk of the exposure the woman fears. This is why imposter syndrome tends to intensify, rather than diminish, as a career advances. The achievement treadmill accelerates, and the fear of falling off it accelerates with it.
Success does not cure imposter syndrome. For the woman who believes she does not deserve what she has built, each achievement becomes another thing she is afraid of losing.
What actually helps, and why understanding matters more than strategies
Most advice about imposter syndrome focuses on strategies: reframe the thought, keep a success journal, and remind yourself of your achievements. These approaches are not without value, but they tend to address the surface of the pattern rather than its roots. Because the roots are relational and emotional rather than cognitive, cognitive interventions tend to produce only partial or temporary relief.
What tends to create more lasting change is understanding. Not just knowing that the pattern exists, but genuinely tracing where it came from, what it was originally protecting, and why it made sense given the emotional environment it developed in. When a woman can see her imposter syndrome not as a flaw in her thinking but as a completely understandable response to a specific set of relational experiences, her relationship to it changes. She is no longer fighting a character failing. She is beginning to understand herself.
This is the kind of work that psychoanalytic therapy is particularly well-suited to support. Not because it provides techniques, but because it creates the conditions in which a woman can slow down enough to explore the beliefs she carries about her own worth, to notice where they came from, and to begin, gradually, to relate to herself differently. Many women find that the imposter voice does not disappear entirely through this process, but it loses its authority. It becomes one perspective among several, rather than the final word.
When imposter syndrome starts costing more than it should
For many women, imposter syndrome is a background hum: uncomfortable, but manageable. For others, it crosses into territory that significantly affects their quality of life. When self-doubt is preventing a woman from speaking in meetings where she has relevant knowledge, from applying for roles she is qualified for, from accepting recognition she has earned, or from resting without anxiety about what her productivity says about her worth, it has become something that deserves more than strategic adjustment.
The same is true when imposter syndrome is fuelling panic, chronic anxiety, or a persistent sense of emotional exhaustion that no amount of achievement seems to shift. These are not signs of weakness or of a career that needs to be managed differently. They are signs that the underlying beliefs driving the pattern need to be understood and, over time, changed at the level where they actually live.
If you recognise yourself in this, it may be worth giving yourself more than another article to read or another strategy to apply. The women who tend to benefit most from therapy are not the ones who lack insight. They are the ones who are already insightful, who understand their patterns intellectually, and who have found that understanding alone has not been quite enough. What tends to shift things is not more information about the pattern, but a relationship in which something different can be experienced.
Frequently asked questions
Is imposter syndrome more common in women than in men?
Yes. A meta-analysis published in 2024, drawing on 115 effect sizes and over 40,000 participants, confirmed that women consistently score higher than men on measures of imposter syndrome. The original 1978 study by Clance and Imes was itself conducted exclusively with high-achieving women, and subsequent research has broadly confirmed that pattern, though imposter syndrome is experienced by people of all genders.
Can you have imposter syndrome even after years of professional success?
Yes, and this is very common. For many women, success intensifies rather than relieves imposter syndrome, because each achievement raises the perceived stakes of eventual exposure. The more visible and established the career becomes, the greater the imagined fall. This is why imposter syndrome often goes unaddressed for years, because the outward evidence of competence makes the inner experience difficult to take seriously.
What is the difference between imposter syndrome and low self-esteem?
The two can overlap, but they are not the same. Low self-esteem tends to be more pervasive, affecting how a person relates to themselves across all areas of life. Imposter syndrome is more specifically tied to achievement and recognition, to the belief that one’s professional success is undeserved or fragile. Many women with imposter syndrome have genuinely good self-esteem in other areas of their lives, which can make the professional self-doubt feel particularly confusing.
Is imposter syndrome something therapy can help with?
Yes. Therapy, and particularly approaches that work with the emotional and relational roots of the pattern rather than just the cognitive surface of it, tends to be effective. The goal is not to eliminate all self-doubt, which would be neither realistic nor desirable, but to reduce the authority the imposter voice holds, and to help a woman develop a relationship with her own worth that does not depend entirely on her next performance.
How is imposter syndrome connected to perfectionism?
Research has found a strong positive correlation between imposterism and self-critical perfectionism. Both patterns share the same underlying logic: that worth must be earned through flawless performance, and that falling short, even slightly, carries disproportionate personal consequences. The perfectionist and the imposter are very often the same woman running the same fear with different vocabularies.
A final note
If you read this and recognised yourself in it, I want to say something directly. The fact that you doubt yourself does not mean your success is undeserved. It means you grew up in circumstances that made it difficult to fully receive what you were working toward. That is not a reflection of your ability. It is a reflection of something that happened before your ability had a chance to fully speak for itself.
Understanding that distinction, and sitting with it long enough for it to become real rather than just intellectually acknowledged, is where things begin to shift. That is slower work than a strategy. It is also far more durable.
If this resonates, you are welcome to reach out. Paula offers a free 30-minute discovery call, where you can talk openly about what you are navigating, ask any questions about the therapeutic process, and get a sense of whether working together feels like a supportive next step.
Read more from Paula Miles
Paula Miles, BACP-Registered Psychotherapist
Paula Miles is a BACP-registered psychotherapist working with anxiety, burnout, and high-functioning stress. With a background in demanding corporate environments and having grown up in a critical, emotionally unavailable, and neglectful family, she learned early to carry the pressure of being the “good,” capable, strong, and always-okay one in every relationship. She deeply understands the experience of performing while feeling depleted inside, broken, or like a failure. Paula transformed her own pain into a vocation, she supports clients in over eight countries, offering a deeply human space where people can understand their emotions, reconnect with themselves, and find a root-cause relief from the patterns that keep them overwhelmed.
Sources and References:
Clance, P. R. and Imes, S. A. (1978). The imposter phenomenon in high-achieving women: Dynamics and therapeutic intervention. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, 15(3), 241-247.
Price, P. C., Holcomb, B. and Payne, M. B. (2024). Gender differences in impostor phenomenon: A meta-analytic review. Current Research in Behavioral Sciences.
Survey Center on American Life. (2023). Women are achieving greater professional success, yet self-doubt is common. americansurveycenter.org
Salari, N. et al. (2025). Global prevalence of imposter syndrome in health service providers: A systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Psychology.
The prevalence of imposter syndrome and its association with psychological distress. PMC / NCBI. (2025).
KPMG. Study on imposter syndrome among female executives.
University of Idaho. (2025). Imposterism and perfectionism correlations. Published study.
