Reasoning in the Chronic Self-Doubt. The Impostor Syndrome Case

The purpose of this article is to suggest similarities within the reasoning framework between the Impostor Syndrome (IS) and the Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), mainly focusing on the dialectical strategy. Will be described the Impostor Syndrome Cycle – a sequence of thought processes, behaviours, and emotional responses that keep the Impostor in a vicious circle of anxiety and self-doubt. In the Impostors mind, any recognised success is wrongly attributed to their ability to hide the true nature of their performance. Therefore, this belief will increase and be maintained through the dialectical strategy. A recurring factor that could trigger the Impostor Syndrome is the sense of «don’t quite fit in» that – similarly to the «not just right experience» (NJRE) – is connected with the feeling of deontological guilt, which seems to get worse the condition of perceived fraudulence. To date the Impostor Syndrome is not classified as a mental disorder; drawing parallels between some features of these two kinds of reasonings (IS and OCD) permits to understand better what the Impostor Syndrome means in terms of thinking patterns, with the final aim of promoting a more differentiated approach in the context of therapy.