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The fear of falling through the basket
Successful women who are making great strides as a well-known actress or professor, but who are still afraid that they may fall through the cracks. This ‘impostor syndrome’ or ‘impostor syndrome’ can be quite annoying. What exactly does it mean? Health net asked career coach, author and feminist Vréneli Stadelmaier, who has researched this.
1. What exactly is impostor syndrome?
“When you think of a syndrome, you immediately think of a very serious genetic abnormality. Of course it is not – the name is therefore a bit deceptive – because a very large part of people suffer from it. It’s basically the fear you have of falling through the cracks. You know you can do something and yet you’re afraid that people will find out that you’re not good enough.”
2. Is it an official psychiatric syndrome?
“No, it’s not an official syndrome. A lot of people have it – about 65 percent of women and about 35 percent of men – they’re just ashamed of those thoughts because they think they’re the only ones who ever think that. That’s not true.”
3. How does the syndrome develop?
“In most people it already starts in their youth. Upbringing and cultural expectations play a role in this. And then it is also the case with women that the female physique does not help to counteract this. To give an example: I had a client, she was very creative and loved being on stage, she grew up in a very technical family: mother was a math teacher, father was an engineer and they didn’t like ‘singing, dancing, jumping’ at all. They kept asking: ‘what’s the use of that?’, ‘you can’t earn money with that, can you?’, that sort of thing.
She is now quite a well-known actress; she’s doing really well, she earns a generous living with it, and yet she still hears her mother’s voice in the back of her mind. Although the newspapers are full of her achievements, she still has the feeling that it is nothing and that everyone will soon find out that she is a scammer. This is a very extreme example.
There was also a column in the Volkskrant recently by a woman who has become a professor and she also says: ‘I don’t belong there at all’ and ‘soon they will find out that I’m just messing around’. This is also because we are not used to women becoming professors. That’s still pretty rare. What she knows and what she does, she finds very normal, but she does not realize that in the eyes of other people she is very special. That means that she constantly has the fear of falling through the basket.”
4. Which people are most affected by it?
“Particularly successful women who have accomplished something, for example the professor who will soon have to give an inaugural speech in a room full of professors. Then she thinks she is going through the cracks, while she also knows very well that it is nonsense, that she knows enough to make it a banging story.”
5. Why do women especially suffer from it?
“It has to do with the culture we grow up in. Feeling like you’re second-class, that you’re inferior to men. When you’re in a certain position that’s always reserved for men, you feel like a kind of cheater. That It could also play a role, it’s also partly in the upbringing, for example it’s much more common for men to bluff and talk about their achievements and success, while if you do that as a woman, you’re immediately arrogant.
We also immediately reject compliments and don’t let them sink in. For example, if someone compliments a dress, a woman is quick to say, ‘I’ve had it for a long time’, or something like that. In addition, we do not incorporate our successes. By that I mean that when we are successful, we forget it very quickly. But if we’ve done something wrong, we’ll know for a long time.”
6. How do you notice that someone suffers from this syndrome?
“You often don’t see on the outside that someone is bothered by this. There are two types of reactions: fight or flight. Fighting is that you start working very hard, that you are constantly working, that you are very perfectionist and the sets the bar very high.Actually, you’re heading for a burnout, that’s the one reaction I often encounter.Women go to work very hard.
The other response is flight behaviour; just don’t do it. Keep your mouth shut during meetings, don’t want to give a presentation, or if you’re asked for an assignment or promotion, say you’re not ready because you need to get a degree or gain more experience first. You then avoid it and just don’t do it. This also includes procrastination. You then sabotage your own success, for example by starting something too late, so that you cannot do it completely right.”
7. Is the impostor syndrome comparable to performance anxiety?
“No, because with performance anxiety you really think you can’t do it, while with impostor syndrome you know you can, but you always have an internal dialogue with yourself. ‘I can do it, I can’t’, or ‘I can do it, but soon they will find out that I can’t do it.’ In the impostor syndrome there is often the fear that others will find out that you can’t do it. That you will go off in the eyes of someone else.”
8. Can people get rid of it?
“Yeah, that’s the good news, it’s not that hard at all. The way to find out – in my book I give seven steps for that – is to realize that a lot of people have it and so it’s not weird is that it’s about the internal dialogue and that they are just thoughts, and that you can learn not to listen to those thoughts anymore and choose a different route, that you understand where those thoughts come from, how it works, what scares you so much and that you really face that fear. You can then correct yourself. You can just learn that.”
8. Are people looking for help for this?
“They certainly look for help, from me or a psychologist. I know, for example, that my book is also used by psychologists who pass it on to their clients or advise them to read my book, because it just makes it very clear what it is about.”
9. Do you have any tips that people can use?
“What’s important is that you’re rested, because when you’re tired, you’re prone to those thoughts and you don’t have the strength to fight them. So be rested, make sure you’re fit—both physically and mentally— that means exercising, eating healthy, maybe doing some yoga, meditation or mindfulness. That helps if you’ve learned to look at your thoughts from a meta-position. You have control over your thoughts. That creates a kind of mental fitness, which is makes it easy to get started.
Also: don’t keep walking with it, because it won’t go away on its own. It also doesn’t go away when you’re more successful, because we know from research that the more successful you are, the worse it gets. So don’t keep walking with it, but do something about it. It’s just a shame and a waste of all your brain power to deal with that sort of thing.”
10. Is there also an opposite syndrome?
“Yes, that’s the Dunning-Kruger effect: a phenomenon that is much more common in men and is actually a counterpart to the impostor syndrome. It’s the exact opposite. Where the impostor syndrome is about (mainly) women who are afraid that people will find out what they can’t do is the Dunning-Kruger effect that men are afraid no one sees how great they are.”
Vréneli Stadelmaier is a career coach, author and feminist. She studied economics and business administration at the University of Groningen and followed coaching courses at the Academy of Psychotherapy, among others. She wrote the bestseller ‘F*ck die Uncertainty’ about the impostor syndrome and has her own coaching practice SheConsult aimed at highly educated women.