#11: Why you have impostor syndrome, and what to do about it: remembering Katherine Hawley

The Academic Imperfectionist

Your desk is covered with self-affirmations on Post-It notes, you spend 5 minutes every morning visualising yourself as Queen of the Universe, and you try not to stick your fingers in your ears whenever people say nice things about you. So why is it that you still struggle to believe that you're good enough?
It's commonly thought that people with impostor syndrome ignore evidence of how great they are. But that's not always true. Katherine Hawley argued that people often have good reasons to believe that they're not good enough, even when they're wrong. Join the Academic Imperfectionist for a quick skate through Hawley's argument and round-up of how you can apply her insights to manage your own impostor syndrome.
Katherine Hawley, professor of philosophy at the University of St Andrews, passed away in April 2021. Her intellect, kindness, and all-round awesomeness are fondly remembered and much missed.
Read Katherine Hawley's 2019 article, 'What is impostor syndrome?' (Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 93/1: 203–226), here.
And here's The Onion's alarmingly vivid portrayal of what impostor syndrome feels like.