Imposter Syndrome in High-Achieving Women: What’s Really Behind It
- Paula Miles
- Nov 20, 2025
- 6 min read
She had a corner office, a brilliant mind, and the respect of her peers. But when she sat in front of me in therapy, tears quietly rolling down her cheeks, all she could say was:“I feel like a fraud. I don’t know how I got here. I’m terrified someone will find out I’m not enough.”
I hear variations of this every week from high-achieving women who live with anxiety and self-doubt. Outwardly, they look confident and successful. Inwardly, they are haunted by a quiet belief that they are not truly capable, not truly deserving. They call it imposter syndrome.
But beneath that buzzword lies something deeper. Imposter syndrome in high-achieving women isn’t just about low confidence. It’s about emotional disconnection, shame, and a fractured sense of self-worth that no promotion or pay rise can fix.
What Is Imposter Syndrome in High-Achieving Women?
Imposter syndrome describes the painful gap between how others see you and how you see yourself.
On the outside, you may be:
The reliable one at work
The problem-solver in your family
The one colleagues turn to in a crisis
But on the inside, the story sounds more like:
“I just got lucky.”
“They think I’m better than I really am.”
“Any moment now, they’ll realise I’m not as good as they believe.”
For many high-achieving women, anxiety and perfectionism are part of this pattern. They perform confidence in meetings, deliver results under pressure, and keep going – even when their nervous system is exhausted.
The Hidden Pattern – Performing Success, Feeling Unworthy
High-achieving women often carry a paradox: they look secure but feel fundamentally unworthy.
This pattern rarely starts in the workplace. It often has roots in early emotional experiences, where love, attention or approval were closely tied to performance:
being praised for achievements, not for simply existing
being the “good girl” who keeps the peace
being valued more when useful, helpful or impressive
Over time, a dangerous equation forms:
worth = performance
Visibility begins to feel like exposure. The more they succeed, the more precarious their sense of self becomes. So even when they enter demanding roles – law, finance, tech, healthcare, leadership – with clear evidence of competence, the internal narrative stays the same
“You’re not really that good. You just worked harder. You just got lucky.”
Shame – The Hidden Driver of Imposter Syndrome
At the heart of many imposter experiences is shame. Not just the fleeting shame of making a mistake in a meeting, but a deeper, quieter shame that whispers
“There is something wrong with me.”
This kind of shame is often unconscious. It becomes wrapped in:
over-functioning at work
perfectionism in every area of life
relentless self-monitoring and self-criticism
On the surface, it can look like motivation and high standards. But inside, it feels like never being allowed to rest, never being allowed to be “enough”.
One client, a partner at a law firm, described it as:
“Walking into every meeting feeling like I’m borrowing someone else’s skin.”
Her outer role had grown, but her inner world hadn’t caught up. Praise bounced off. Promotions triggered dread. And therapy became the first place she could say, out loud.
“I don’t feel like I belong here.”
How Imposter Syndrome Shows Up in Daily Life
For many professional women, imposter syndrome and anxiety weave quietly into everyday routines. It can show up as:
Overpreparing for every email, meeting or presentation
Working late because “I should be doing more”
Downplaying achievements or giving credit away
Avoiding opportunities in case they “prove” you’re not good enough
Comparing yourself to others and always finding yourself lacking
Physically, it may look like:
trouble sleeping before important days
headaches or muscle tension
a constant feeling of being “on alert”
From the outside, people may describe you as “driven”, “super organised”, or “on top of everything”. Inside, you may feel like you’re holding everything together with shaking hands.
From Proving to Belonging – A Different Emotional Story
Imposter syndrome keeps you stuck in a cycle of proving:
proving you’re smart enough
proving you deserve your role
proving you’re not a failure
Therapy begins to shift the focus from proving to belonging.
Instead of asking, “How can I convince them I’m enough?”, we begin to ask:
Who taught you that you had to earn your worth?
When did it become unsafe to be vulnerable, emotional, or imperfect?
What did you have to hide in order to be accepted?
Often, we find old survival roles:
the peacemaker
the responsible one
the high-achiever
These roles made sense at the time. They protected you. But now, they may be strangling your self-worth.
When you begin to see imposter feelings as signals – signs of emotional disconnection and shame – rather than proof of your inadequacy, something softens. You may start to:
grieve the years spent performing
reconnect with parts of yourself that were silenced
question the belief that worth must be constantly earned
True confidence is not the absence of doubt. It is the ability to feel doubt and still stay rooted in who you are.
How Psychotherapy Helps High-Achieving Women with Imposter Syndrome
In psychotherapy, there is no performance review. No evaluation. No test to pass.
For many high-achieving, anxious women, this is deeply unfamiliar. They are used to being “on” – even in friendships, even in family conversations. At first, being invited to simply be can feel unsettling.
But over time, something shifts. In the therapy room, you are invited to:
share fears without needing to fix them immediately
feel anger, sadness or disappointment without apologising
explore the younger parts of you that learned to survive by overachieving
My work as a therapist is to help you:
understand the emotional roots of your imposter feelings
notice how shame and anxiety show up in your body and relationships
experiment with new ways of relating to yourself – with more compassion and less harshness
Rather than adding more strategies on top of an already overloaded nervous system, therapy gives you a place to slow down, to be seen and to feel less alone with what you carry.
A Space to Be Seen Without Performing
In depth psychotherapy, especially when rooted in psychoanalytic understanding, we are not rushing to “fix” you. We are paying attention to the whole of you – your history, your inner world, the roles you play, and the parts of you that never had space.
Clients often tell me that, for the first time:
they are not managing other people’s expectations in the room
they can say, “I feel like a fraud” and watch the shame ease, slowly
they feel held – not because they are impressive, but because they are human
In that kind of space, imposter syndrome does not disappear overnight. But it begins to lose its power. Not through forced affirmations, but through felt recognition.
When to Consider Therapy for Imposter Syndrome and Anxiety
You might consider therapy if:
your fear of being “found out” is stopping you from enjoying your success
you feel constantly anxious, even when nothing is “wrong” on paper
you struggle to rest without guilt
your relationships are affected by your self-doubt and perfectionism
you are tired of holding everything together alone
You do not need a formal diagnosis or a “big enough” reason to reach out. If your inner life feels heavy, that is reason enough.
A Gentle Invitation
If you live with a quiet fear that you’ll be found out – not because you are unqualified, but because you feel unworthy – know this: you are not alone.
That fear is not proof that you are a fraud. It is a remnant of a time when you believed your worth had to be earned, performed, or proved.
You don’t have to keep living that way. You don’t have to hustle for belonging. You don’t have to be perfect to be real.
Therapy offers a different path. One where your success isn’t a mask, but a mirror. One where you are allowed to feel “enough” – even before you achieve a single thing.
If you’re a high-achieving woman struggling with imposter syndrome, anxiety or emotional overwhelm and you’d like a space to explore this in depth, I offer psychotherapy in Basingstoke and online, with longer sessions designed to support deep, lasting change.
Comments