Transcriber: Miraya Mittal Reviewer: Alexey S.
Suddenly, years ago, I began following a few very dynamic
and well known self development gurus.
I also subscribed to a few of their platforms,
and almost immediately, I got bombarded with messages, telling me
I had this horrible affliction called “imposter syndrome”.
Apart from it seeming a bit rude, I didn’t know what it was at the time.
I’m a physician, who trained in a biopsychosocial
or holistic approach to health and wellness,
so to have what was being reported
as this pervasive psychological derailment meant
I had something new to study.
I quickly discovered that imposter syndrome is not in the Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or the DSM-5, as we call it.
This is what we in medicine use to diagnose psychological disorders.
I dug deeper and I studied more and I learned that in 1978.
Clinical psychologist Dr. Pauline Clance and Dr. Suzanne Imes coined
the phrase ‘imposter phenomenon’ when describing fear,
self-doubt and feeling like a fraud in high achieving women.
They concluded that impostor feelings developed even in the face of success,
especially in the face of success.
Doctors claims, and it was deduced that impostor feelings develop
with stereotypes and prejudice or internalized and further internalized.
When the success the women experienced is incongruent with societal expectations
and further confirmed by the negative messages women received along their path
to that success. The more I studied,
the less real imposter syndrome became to me.
Assigning the term imposter to feelings rather than to its true meaning
of intentionally defining immediately lends itself to mislabelling.
Feeling like a fraud doesn't make an imposter.
Acting like a fraud does. So just by labelling feelings as impostor,
anything immediately reveals its inaccuracy.
I’m not saying that feelings aren’t real. They are. So are their consequences.
But the diagnosis is not. In order to be an impostor, intention matters.
The only intention in the case of high achievers is to reach
a higher goal, to better themselves, and the lives of those around them.
In any other circumstance,
when a person excels time and time again in the face of fear, self-doubt,
or when feeling like a fraud,
it’s the epiphany of strength, courage and bravery.
By regarding fear, self-doubt and feeling fraudulent as a syndrome,
we pathologize what is a normal part of personal expansion.
Nervousness in a new situation,
fear of failing, self-doubt when facing difficulty,
anxiety in places requiring your psychological protection.
We have all experienced this in our journey to grow.
However, in time, and in public discourse,
imposter phenomenon became imposter syndrome
and assigned to women and men in any marginalized group,
commonly subjected to prejudice and negative stereotypes.
But changing phenomenon to syndrome
shifts the development of imposter feelings to the individual,
instead of those feelings being created within a societal context
as Clance and Imes had intended.
I am black.
I am a woman.
I am a physician in a country
where only two percent of all physicians are black women.
And I’m giving a TEDx talk. I am at this very moment,
a perfect example of someone who should have imposter syndrome, but I don’t.
And this isn't by accident.
I grew up in a home with seven brothers and sisters,
and anyone from a large family can tell you getting either parent alone is rare.
So, when I was eight years old, not only was it rare,
but also created one of the most memorable and pivotal moments in my life.
I discovered that while everyone else was watching morning cartoons,
I could have my father all to myself.
On those Sunday mornings,
I would sit on the end of my parents bed, just chatting away,
usually to the back fold of the NRA news.
But more often, he’d be scratching equations on his signature yellow notepad.
And it wasn’t that my father ignored me.
He just wasn't always listening. And I didn't notice.
And even if I had noticed, I wouldn't have cared.
My father was a God in our house.
He was as kind and generous as he was all-knowing.
And to 8 year old Miss Happy End -- me --
he was all powerful and I was powerful by proximity.
Then one day I went to my usual Sunday morning check
and dad wasn’t there.
He was gone.
Not gone on a business trip
or gone to surprise us with early morning doughnuts.
Just gone.
What followed is now blurred by trauma in time.
I do remember being told he was in the hospital with colon cancer.
And I remember the bottom of my world falling out.
And then one day, like magic,
dad walks through the door, with his chocolate skin and his deep dimple chin
and his eyes twinkling when he smiled. And my world was finally back to normal.
Sometime later, I sat in my usual Sunday morning spot,
for our usual Sunday morning chat. But this time, there was no barrier.
Just dad’s truly undivided attention. I asked him a lot of questions.
He answered each one very carefully and in a way I could understand.
He spoke with such awe about the doctors who saved his life.
And I listened with so much appreciation.
I said at that moment I was going to be a doctor when I grew up.
And I meant it. I never wavered from that declaration.
And my father never wavered in his support in making me believe I could do it.
Of course then, I didn’t know that my goal of becoming
a doctor went against negative stereotypes
for little black girls in 1973,
nor that my father’s encouragement acted
as a shield, when my goals later met others’ prejudice.
And for those of you doing the math, I'll save you some time.
Eight years old in nineteen seventy three makes me fifty six years old today.
I know, it’s so hard to believe, but as I was saying,
what a father’s encouragement was my greatest protection.
When a premed adviser told me that for people like me,
getting into medical school would be difficult,
but getting through would be almost impossible.
One called my father dispelled the self doubt before it could creep in,
when middle school classmates whispered that my mission was
to meet diversity quotas. Before I could internalize what they said,
my father reminded me that my skin color did not pass my test and board exams.
The feelings assigned to imposter syndrome are created with seeds of doubt,
and are planted in the minds of the unaware and the unprotected.
And those feelings are then projected inwardly to fester.
In medicine, we don't call that a syndrome.
We called it an infection.
If searching the Internet and the nine million
items that return in under a second is any indication.
A lot of people claim imposter syndrome.
Ethan Kross is a University of Michigan psychologist
and neuroscientist, who specializes in emotional regulation.
In his book “Chatter: The Voice in Our Head,
Why It Matters, and How to Harness It”
he states that the silent conversation we have with ourselves influence how we
live our lives. And that critical,
negative thoughts and emotions can turn our introspection into a curse.
Kross also states that when our brain is not occupied with other tasks,
talking to ourselves is our default mode. And when we talk to ourselves, we listen.
He emphasized the negative introspection, effects performance,
our decision making, our relationships, our happiness, our health in jeopardy.
What we say to ourselves matters.
Claiming imposter syndrome becomes either a self-fulfilling prophecy by sabotage
or perpetual trauma by achievement to the next level.
Do we call soldiers who are afraid in battle imposters?
Do we say a child has a syndrome,
who is afraid and full of self-doubt on their first day of kindergarten?
I’m not saying there aren’t those with true delusions of inferiority, who believe
the world sees them as someone they think they are not, or others with paranoia,
whose lives are disrupted by fear
and everything they gain will be snatched away by the powers that be.
But what we assign to imposter syndrome are not the extreme cases of delusion
and paranoia, but instead the nervousness, insecurities,
doubt and fear as we all feel when growing and reaching
a higher level of achievement.
If we stop telling ourselves we have imposter syndrome? We don’t have it.
It's that simple.
But simple isn't always easy, except with practice.
So, practice telling yourself you’ve earned the promotion.
Practice telling yourself your degrees are symbols of your hard work.
Practice telling yourself as supervisors praise reflects your performance,
that it is well deserved.Practice telling yourself that no matter, what others think
of you, what you think about yourself matters most.
So as you continue to excel in your spaces,
in spite of feeling nervous or afraid or wondering if you belong
or feeling like you don't.
Instead of calling yourself what you are not -- a fake, a fraud,
an impostor with a syndrome,
reframe your thoughts to celebrate who you really are. Strong, courageous.
And brave.