‘Fakes’ Scared of Being Found Out : For Many, Not Even Success Succeeds Like Success

Look around the office or schoolroom. Seven out of 10 people there have one thing in common--deep down inside, they feel like fakes.

They keep this terrible feeling secret. Almost as bad as thinking they are phonies is the fear of being found out; those seven out of 10 people are certain that they’re on the brink of encountering an assignment or an event that will be their downfall.

Then the world will know them for what they really are--impostors. These people are suffering from what psychologists call the “Impostor Phenomenon.”

In the early ‘70s, Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes, both psychologists at Georgia State University, began studying this syndrome. They had noticed that many extremely successful students, women in particular, strongly believed they were fakes. The women all had good grades, many had advanced degrees and some had already been hired into excellent jobs.

Pegged an Impostor

Nonetheless, the psychologists observed that the women lived in fear of being “found out” and of being pegged an impostor.

As increasing numbers of psychologists began studying the impostor phenomenon, it became clear that the syndrome wasn’t limited to women. As many men as women experience it; and the only trait they share is that they are successful by anybody’s definition.

“It’s very different from low self-esteem,” said Clance, now associate director of the psychotherapy clinic at Georgia State. “Low self-esteem really interferes with a person actually achieving any kind of success. But what I saw . . . was students with objective evidence of their success, yet they all had the feeling they were the Campus Mistake.”

Creative Fields

Clance, who wrote a book this year called “The Impostor Phenomenon--Overcoming the Fear That Haunts Your Success” (Peachtree Publishers), said the syndrome is particularly pronounced in the creative fields of writing, television and film.

“Public opinion can shift so quickly,” Clance said. “You can’t just judge yourself on your popularity. You have to find a way to internalize your successes and really believe you’re good.”

She said successful people suffering from the impostor phenomenon often encounter an intriguing paradox. They keep succeeding.

Unable to understand this, because they “know” they’re really fakes who have by luck, charm or the grace of God gotten where they are, these people up the ante.

“When they get a success, they raise the definition of real success a rung on the ladder,” Clance said. “If they’ve done one good movie, next time they need to do a bigger, better movie. And the next time, if they don’t win an Oscar, it’s obvious to themselves that they’re just fakes after all.”

Exhausting Cycle

This cycle is exhausting, Clance said. “To keep feeling good, they have to keep doing more and more. This can contribute to burnout.”

Clance said the roots of the impostor phenomenon usually lie in childhood. “There is a discrepancy between the feedback from the family and from outside sources like teachers. The family might keep saying ‘You can do anything’ but then the child gets to school and finds out he’s good but can’t really do everything . Nobody can.

“Or you have families that say, ‘Jane is our bright child and John is our athletic child.’ Then John starts getting excellent grades and his teachers tell him how bright he is. John may start feeling like an impostor because he knows he’s not supposed to be the bright one,” Clance said.

The hypercritical parent can create feelings of being an impostor in children too. If nothing a child does is ever good enough for the parent, then when the child grows up and is told by teachers or bosses that he’s done a good job, he won’t believe it.

Protective Facade

Joan C. Harvey, a clinical psychologist in Philadelphia and author of “If I’m So Successful, Why Do I Feel Like Fake?” (St. Martin’s Press), said “The impostor phenomenon is a facade people set up to protect their true selves.

“It often leads to perfectionism--and a feeling that if you’re not perfect, you’ve failed completely.” She said many of the clients she sees who are experiencing impostor feelings have a “horror of being average.”

According to Harvey, there are three basic signs of the impostor phenomenon:

--A person thinks he has fooled other people into overestimating his ability.

--Attributing success to some factor other than intelligence or ability.

--Fear of being discovered as a fraud.

“Many people who suffer from the impostor phenomenon are extremely intelligent and talented . . . However, even if they are aware of having certain abilities, they minimize them,” Harvey wrote in her book. “In their eyes, the things that come naturally and easily to them are expected. They don’t count.”

What does count, almost invariably, is the one area in which the person sees himself as being weak.

Doctoral Program

Harvey said she first got interested in the impostor phenomenon when she began a doctoral program at Temple University. “I’d been away from academics for years,” she said. “Your mind gets a little rusty from disuse. I didn’t know certain literature that everybody else seemed to know. I felt I didn’t even know big words anymore. I just knew they were going to find me out and kick me out of school.”

She said her experience is fairly typical. “Some situations induce temporary feelings of being an impostor,” she said. “New jobs, new schools, anything new or unfamiliar is likely to trigger latent feelings of being a fake.”

Also typical is the victim of the impostor phenomenon, who might hear a dozen compliments about an accomplishment and then get one negative comment. That one whiff of doubt will be the one he agonizes about late at night.

Workaholism is a behavior pattern of many “impostors,” although not all workaholics are suffering from the phenomenon. The impostor tends to explain his achievements solely on the basis of hard work.

‘Performance Events’

The workaholic impostor begins to prepare for “performance events” far before he really needs to, according to Harvey. “They see every performance event as being crucial, whether it’s a test, a report at work or a dinner party,” Harvey said. “Each event holds the potential to be ‘the big one’--the one that will expose them as frauds to the very people they want to impress.”

As a result, the impostor tends to over-prepare. Part of this preparation time includes a great deal of energy spent worrying about the event. By the time the event occurs, it’s anti-climactic. Even more damaging is the reinforcement this cycle offers to the behavior.

Because the impostor doesn’t really feel like he deserves the success, he attributes it only to the overpreparation and worry. Next time, he’ll overprepare and worry even more.

Another common trait of the impostor is procrastination--putting off doing an important task until the last minute because the person is convinced that it will be ‘the big one.’ So what if the person has written 50 good stories?

Gail Matthews, head of the psychology department at Dominican College in San Rafael, has also done a great deal of research on the impostor phenomenon. Her studies are widely cited--Matthews was the first to determine that as many as 70% of all successful people experience feelings of being a phony.

‘Driven Quality’

“There is a very driven quality about the impostor victim,” Matthews said. “There is an inability to delegate because of the perfectionism and each success only offers temporary relief. Prior to doing a job, (the impostor) doesn’t think he’s going to be able to do it.

“Afterwards, he’ll say, ‘Well, anybody could have done it.’ The impostor will point out all the negative things, all the things he did wrong. He’ll also think to himself, when he hears a compliment about how well he performed some task, ‘They don’t know everything I didn’t do,’ ” Matthews said.

Matthews has several suggestions for avoiding the phenomenon during child-rearing or for coming to grips with it as an adult:

--As a parent, avoid global praise or criticism of your children. Don’t tell a child that he is the most perfect thing ever to hit this earth; don’t tell him he’s the worst. Be specific. When a child does something well, tell him “You did a great job on that test.” When he does something wrong, keep the criticism to the particular offending incident.

--Avoid labeling your children. Titles like “the smart one” or the “pretty one” can haunt a child for the rest of his life.

Really Listening

--As an adult try to really listen to compliments. “Listen, try to take it in when someone compliments you,” Matthews said. “Hear what they’re saying. Ask them to be specific: ‘What specifically did you think was good about my work?’ Write down what they tell you.”

--”You can learn it’s OK not to know everything and you don’t have to cover it up,” Matthews said. “Learn to say ‘I don’t know’ or ‘No, I won’t take on that extra task.’ Don’t say, ‘I can’t.’ That sounds like you’re not able.”

--Perfectionism can be overcome by learning when it’s important to do your best and when it’s all right to just be OK, she said. “If you take less time on things that don’t mean as much, you’ll have more time to make the important things the best.”

--In Matthews’ workshops, she tells people to “catastrophize.” “It’s a good way to begin overcoming the fear of failure,” she said. “People can learn to fantasize the worst and most horrible catastrophe that will happen if they don’t do a job perfectly. Usually it’s being fired. Then they can ask themselves if this is likely, and, if it is, can they live through it?”

Perhaps most important, according to every psychologist doing research on the impostor phenomenon, is realizing that, if you feel like a fake, you’re not alone.