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.
The Soloist Imposter This is the third post in the series looking at the one of the five patterns of Imposter Syndrome identified by Dr. Valerie Young. In the previous two posts we looked at the Perfectionist Imposter, and then the Expert Imposter. For others, imposter syndrome isn’t about being perfect or knowing everything, it’s […]
Imposter syndrome doesn’t show up in the same way for everyone. For some it shows up through perfectionism and in my previous blogpost I wrote about the Perfectionist Imposter (click here to read). For others it can show up as expertise and the belief that you should always know more, have all the answers, and […]
In an earlier blog post I wrote about the 5 different types of imposter syndrome as defined by Dr. Valerie Young. Click here to read. In this post I write about one of those types in more detail – The Perfectionist Imposter. The Perfectionist Imposter Imposter syndrome shows up in different ways for different people. […]
When self-doubt or anxiety hits, it can feel like being lost in a storm.The skies are dark, the winds are loud, and it’s hard to see clearly. In earlier blogs we’ve explored how to steady yourself (Dropping Anchor), why fighting feelings makes them worse (Dropping the Struggle), and how emotions are like the weather, constantly […]
We all know what it’s like to wake up to a grey, rainy morning. You may not like what you find when you open the curtains, but you also recognise there’s not much you can do about it. You don’t control the weather. You only control what you do when it’s raining. You might pull […]
Most of us are experts at struggling with our own minds.When anxiety or self-doubt shows up, our instinct is to push it away, silence it, or out-think it. And for a moment, it might feel like it works, but very quickly, the doubts creep back in, often louder than before. This is what keeps many […]
We all know what it’s like to get caught up in a storm of thoughts and feelings. Maybe it’s the tension before a big meeting, the anxiety on the train into work, or that familiar voice telling you “you’re not good enough for this.” When a wave like that hits, most of us do one […]
Introduction Imposter syndrome can feel like a relentless companion as it whispers doubts, demands proof, and pushes you to keep running to avoid being “found out.” At first, the strategies you use to quiet it down such as working harder, hiding mistakes, chasing credentials, seem to help. But over time, the pressure builds, and instead […]
Hi. I’m H2 section title. Imposter syndrome isn’t just about self-doubt – it’s about uncertainty.That nagging “what if…?” spiral fuels overthinking, perfectionism, and the constant fear of being “found out.” In therapy, I see this every week. People who look capable on the outside, yet inside feel shaky because nothing ever feels certain enough. Here […]
Imposter syndrome isn’t just about self-doubt. It’s about the traps we fall into when we believe our minds and act on short-term relief rather than long-term values. For many of my clients, this shows up as a familiar cycle: the more they try to escape the feeling of being a fraud, the more trapped they […]