Making Sense of Anxiety, Self-Doubt & Imposter Syndrome
Practical, compassionate articles for capable people who overthink, second-guess themselves, and feel like frauds despite the evidence. Drawing on CBT, ACT, CFT and EMDR, these posts will help you make sense of what your mind is doing, understand the patterns that keep you stuck, and learn to trust your own experience.
When anxiety or self-doubt takes hold, it can feel like one big, formless wave that arrives and sweeps you along. But if you slow it down, it isn’t formless at all. Everything that happens is happening in one of six specific places, and every skill worth learning targets one of them. I use this map […]
You replay the conversation on the drive home. You’re mid-email when the doubt arrives. You lie awake at 2am with a mind that won’t switch off, and somewhere along the way you’ve concluded that you think too much. Here’s something I find myself explaining in the therapy room more often than almost anything else, because […]
Why do I feel anxious all the time when nothing is actually wrong? It’s one of the questions I hear most often, usually from people who have already spent years trying to answer it themselves. If that’s you, you’ve probably tried the obvious things. You’ve told yourself to calm down and reasoned through why […]
The feedback is good. The promotion happened. The work keeps landing well. So why is there still a voice insisting that sooner or later, someone is going to realise you don’t belong here? If you live with that voice, you’ve probably tried to reason with it. You’ve listed your qualifications, replayed the successes, and somehow […]
You’ve read the books. You’ve listened to the podcasts. You’ve asked the people you trust – maybe more than once. So why, after all that advice, do you still not know what to do? If that question lands, you’re in good company. Many of the people I work with are intelligent, capable, and conscientious. They […]
When you’re looking for therapy, one of the first practical questions is whether to meet in person or online. Both can be genuinely effective, and I offer both – but there are some real benefits to in-person sessions that are worth knowing about before you decide. Stepping out of your everyday environment When you’re looking […]
If you’ve been referred for EMDR, or stumbled across it while researching therapy options, you might be wondering what on earth it involves. The name alone – Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing – doesn’t make it immediately obvious. And some of the descriptions online can make it sound either mysterious, complicated, or both. This post […]
A lot of people put off starting therapy not because they don’t want help, but because they’re not quite sure what they’re walking into. Will they be expected to talk about their whole life history? Will it feel clinical and cold? What if they don’t know what to say? These are entirely understandable concerns and […]
You’ve worked hard to get where you are. So why does it still feel like you don’t quite belong – or that it’s only a matter of time before people find you out? If that question resonates, you’re not alone. Imposter syndrome is one of the most common things I work with as a therapist, […]
Most of the people I work with aren’t failing. On paper, things often look fine – sometimes more than fine. They’re capable, thoughtful, hard-working, and in many cases, genuinely successful. But internally, it’s a different story. There’s a persistent sense of not being quite good enough, a quiet fear of being found out, and an […]