Imposter syndrome is the quiet, exhausting suspicion that you've somehow got away with it — that the role, the title, the success isn't really yours. Imposter syndrome therapy helps you change that story from the inside out, working with a trained therapist to understand where the fraud-feeling came from and why harder work has never quieted it.
I'm Keeley Taverner, a Psychotherapist, BACP Accredited and author of Why Love Hurts. Across 14 years in private practice I've worked with senior leaders, consultants, doctors, founders, academics, first-in-the-family graduates and creatives — people whose CVs look unimpeachable from the outside, who privately spend a lot of energy keeping the fraud-feeling at bay. This page explains how imposter syndrome therapy works at my practice in Marlow and online.
What is imposter syndrome?
"Imposter syndrome" was first named in 1978 by clinical psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes, describing a pattern they saw in high-achieving women — though the experience is by no means limited to women.
It is a pattern, not a personality flaw. It tends to involve: (1) attributing your achievements to luck, timing or having "fooled" people; (2) a chronic fear of being found out; (3) over-preparing, over-working or perfectionism as a defence; (4) dismissing positive feedback as politeness; (5) feeling worse, not better, the more you achieve.
It is most common in people who occupy spaces they were not raised to expect to occupy — first-in-the-family professionals, women in male-dominated fields, people of colour in predominantly white environments, working-class people in middle-class workplaces. It is a response to a context, not just an internal flaw.
Signs imposter syndrome may be running your working life
- You feel like a fraud despite obvious external success
- You over-prepare for things you could do in your sleep
- Praise makes you uncomfortable — you change the subject
- You attribute promotions to luck, "right place right time", or being liked
- You can't enjoy a win — you're already worried about the next thing
- You're more afraid of being found out than of failing
- You're working harder and harder to silence a feeling that just gets louder
- You can't tell whether you actually want what you've been chasing
Trying harder doesn't fix imposter syndrome — because it's the trying-harder that feeds it. What helps is changing the underlying story, not the size of the CV.
How therapy for imposter syndrome works
My approach is integrative, so we'll work with both the immediate thinking patterns and the deeper story underneath. In practice, this often moves through:
- Naming it clearly — what your imposter voice actually says, when, and to whom; getting it out of the back of your head and into the room.
- The internalised story — where this voice learned its lines: family, school, class, race, gender, an early experience of being "the only one" of something.
- Living evidence — practical work on holding on to evidence of your own competence instead of immediately discounting it.
- The deeper question — what made being "not enough" feel safer than risking being seen, and what becomes possible when you risk it anyway.
Imposter syndrome isn't really about whether you can do the job. It's about whether you're allowed to.
Imposter syndrome, perfectionism and burnout
Imposter feelings sit closely alongside people-pleasing, perfectionism and the kind of relentless over-functioning that eventually tips into burnout. We work on the imposter pattern itself and on the wider system it's part of — because you cannot rest until the part of you that thinks resting equals being found out has been heard and put down.
Imposter syndrome therapist in Marlow & Buckinghamshire
I see clients in person at The Courtyard, 60 Station Road, Marlow SL7 1NX — a quiet, private space a short walk from Marlow town centre and easily reached from Bourne End, Maidenhead, High Wycombe, Henley-on-Thames and the surrounding Buckinghamshire villages. If you've been searching for an imposter syndrome counsellor near me in Buckinghamshire, or treatment for imposter syndrome that goes beyond coping tips, this practice offers something different. Online therapy for imposter syndrome by secure video is also available across the UK — often the right fit for senior professionals whose diaries don't easily allow a journey. Sessions are £250 and completely confidential.
The simplest first step is a free, no-pressure 30-minute consultation — a brief call to ask questions and see how it feels.
