It seems like everyone now has imposter syndrome. Or at least everyone who isn’t a psychopath.
The traditional definition of imposter syndrome focuses on feeling like a fraud and questioning one’s own abilities to do what one is doing. I want to focus on this feeling of fraud because it is a question of identity or misidentification.
We all have a view of who we are, and part of that view is the titles we are given, whether at work, like senior software Engineer, VP of Product, or CEO, or in life, like father, husband, or son. How meaningful each title is will vary from person to person.
Each of those titles has an ideal we associate with it that we expect to live up to. At the same time, something is missing from each of these titles so that no collection of titles can ever fully encapsulate who we are.
I would postulate that imposter syndrome is our internal relation to these issues and that, fundamentally, it is a form of self-alienation. I wrote about alienation in newsletter #4 and encourage you to check that out as well.
Living Up to the Ideal
There are multiple conceptions at work when we talk about living up to the ideal of being a leader, a CEO, or even a father. One is now we imagine ourselves. A second is what we think others expect. And a third is the harsh judgment we imagine. These equate to three concepts from Lacan: the ideal ego, the ego ideal, and the superego.
These are explained by Slavoj Žižek in How to Read Lacan:
Lacan introduces a precise distinction between these three terms: ‘ideal ego’ stands for the idealized self-image of the subject (the way I would like to be, the way I would like others to see me); Ego-Ideal is the agency whose gaze I try to impress with my ego image, the big Other who watches over me and impels me to give my best, the ideal I try to follow and actualize; and superego is this same agency in its vengeful, sadistic, punishing aspect. The underlying structuring principle of these three terms is clearly Lacan’s triad Imaginary-Symbolic-Real: ideal ego is imaginary, what Lacan calls the ‘small other’, the idealized mirror-image of my ego; Ego-Ideal is symbolic, the point of my symbolic identification, the point in the big Other from which I observe (and judge) myself; superego is real, the cruel and insatiable agency that bombards me with impossible demands and then mocks my botched attempts to meet them, the agency in whose eyes I am all the more guilty, the more I try to suppress my ‘sinful’ strivings and meet its demands. 1
Let’s take a look at these three perspectives more closely.
Ideal Ego
The ideal ego is how we imagine our best selves. From that perspective, we push ourselves, creating strain and a feeling that we can’t be good enough. This causes us to be alienated from ourselves. This operates from the perspective of the imaginary, which is the idea that there is a model for us to try and copy or emulate. This idea is explained by Byung-Chul Han:
A new form of alienation is coming into existence today. It is no longer an alienation from the world or from work, but rather a destructive self-alienation: alienation from oneself. This self-alienation takes place precisely in the course of self-optimization and self-realization. As soon as the performance subject perceives itself, for example its own body, as a functional object to be optimized, it gradually becomes alienated from it.2
By trying to optimize ourselves, we must create some distance from who we are and the person we are trying to improve and optimize. This feeling of separation that allows us to work on ourselves also causes us to become alienated from who we really are. That alienation can create the sense that the project, the best leader, CEO, or father we are trying to be is someone other than us and that we are an imposter.
The Ego Ideal
The Ego ideal is what we imagine others expect us to be. It is the point or perspective from which we imagine how others look at us that we want to live up to. This operates from the symbolic perspective where there is less of a model and more of a relationship and meaning we are attempting to achieve.
We create this idea of how we expect others to see us; we have an ideal that we are expected to live up to. Mari Ruti presents this as an idea of social hegemony, a construct in which we think a singular perspective is tied to each of these identities that causes it to function in a specific way.
This is how social hegemonies function: we internalize cultural values on such a fundamental level that they begin to seem like self-evident “facts”; they come to possess an actuality that we no longer think to question.3
This is the perspective we give to the ego ideal of the social hegemonic actor—an entity that believes what we think everyone believes. When we judge ourselves from the perspective of the ego ideal, we judge ourselves a second time and in a different way. From this perspective, there is a cultural idea that we are measured against that we can never attain. We can only be an imposter.
Superego
Finally, the superego is the most judgmental of all. The superego causes us to internalize the failure to live up to an impossible standard and to blame ourselves rather than the impossibility of that standard. This comes from the register of the real, where what is impossible breaks through into our reality. Again, Han writes about how this can show up in contemporary society as we are continuously pushed to succeed, and any failures are to be seen as personal failures.
People who fail in the neoliberal achievement-society see themselves as responsible for their lot and feel shame instead of questioning society or the system. 4
We continue to be told not to play the victim and to take responsibility for our condition. This can lead us to question ourselves and feel we are imposters. We are aware of the challenges that society and systems create for us, but by blaming ourselves for falling short of an impossible standard, we can’t help but feel we are imposters.
The Split Subject
The second condition that leads to alienation is the idea of the split subject, which is the concept that there is a split or separation between what we are conscious of and what operates in our unconscious. This is also talked about as that which is symbolized (the names and titles we are given) and the real us, which will always be something more than can be symbolized. And this is fundamental to who we are.
As Todd McGowan writes,
Subjectivity comes into existence through a process of alienation that produces a divide between the subject and the symbolic identity that it takes on in the social order. As a subject, no one can become identical with a symbolic identity because the subject relates to this identity from a distance. There is always a divide between who I am as a subject and what I am as an identity. 5
From this view, there isn’t an original sense of who we are before we are alienated. We are alienated as we gain a sense of who we are. McGowan continues,
The paradox of alienation is that it doesn’t mark a deviation from an original identity that we once had and lost but constitutes who we are. Alienation occurs, but it doesn’t alienate us from what we once really were. Instead, alienation is primary. We are alienated in our subjectivity, and alienation persists until our death. 6
There is always something left out. Even if we were to list every title, quality, attribute, and detail we can think about ourselves, there is always something more than can be named.
This often comes into focus when we think about being in love with someone. We can list things we love about that person, but words always seem inadequate when asked why we love them because nothing can capture what that love represents. This inability to capture everything is part of what makes what we see in the other person beautiful, but it also leaves a gap. And that gap is something that, when we look at ourselves, creates a sense of alienation between what can be said and who we are. In that, we will always feel like imposters.
How Can We Deal with Imposter Syndrome?
Approached from this perspective, imposter syndrome seems natural and normal. And it becomes less of a question of how we get rid of it and more of how we live with it. The desire to rid ourselves of imposter syndrome is a risk.
But alienation is not unbearable in itself. It is unbearable when one believes in the possibility of an unalienated state, in a past or a future free from the burden of it. The lure of overcoming alienation entraps subjects in the pursuit of a false possibility that deforms their perspective on existence… People don’t become dangerous because of their alienation but because of their belief that they should be self-identical and are failing to achieve this aim. The danger consists in trying to overcome alienation, not in alienation itself. 7
When we fight against the idea that this is normal, try to become identical with the symbols and titles, or give everything to achieve an impossible ideal, we create pain for ourselves and for others. This isn’t to say we shouldn’t strive. We certainly should, and imposter syndrome can help people strive for more, but we should also accept that our striving will always be asymptotic.
Instead, we can use our sense of being alienated from ourselves and an imposter to connect with others.
It is only as alienated beings that we can find ourselves where we aren’t. It is only as alienated beings that we can experience solidarity with equally alienated others. 8
When we know that everyone is an imposter because no one can live up to the impossible ideals we have created and that each of us is more than can be articulated, we recognize that imposter syndrome is part of what it means to be human. With that, we can stop fighting it and instead use it to form connections and grow.
- Slavoj Žižek, How to Read Lacan ↩
- Byung-Chul Han, The Expulsion of the Other ↩
- Mari Ruti, The Call of Character: Living a Life Worth Living ↩
- Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics ↩
- Todd McGowan, Embracing Alienation ↩
- Ibid ↩
- Ibid ↩
- Ibid ↩