Hypnotherapy for Imposter Syndrome

Hypnotherapy for Imposter Syndrome:

I’m a fraud.

I’m not worthy.

Is this really me?

I don’t belong here.

I’m not good enough.

Who do I think I am?

Who am I getting ideas above my station?

 

Sound familiar?

 

Welcome to Imposter Syndrome. You’re in good company. Michelle Obama, Tom Hanks Lady GaGa, and Emma Watson have all shared their imposter syndrome experiences publicly. But what is this demon?

What is imposter Syndrome?

Dr. Pauline Clance, along with her colleague Dr. Suzanne Imes, first identified and defined Imposter Syndrome in 1978. Their ground-breaking work emerged from their clinical observations and research at Georgia State University. They noticed that many high-achieving women, despite their academic and professional accomplishments, felt an internalised fear of being exposed as frauds. These women believed that their success was not due to their abilities but rather to luck, timing, or other external factors.

They observed a recurring pattern among their female clients and students who, despite objective evidence of their competence, were unable to internalise their success. These individuals often felt they were deceiving others about their capabilities and feared being “found out” as impostors. This led to their initial definition:

An internal experience of intellectual phoniness that was prevalent among high-achieving women characterised by chronic self-doubt, the inability to accept and internalise success, and a tendency to attribute achievements to external factors like luck or effort rather than inherent ability.

 

The key issue is the incongruity between the individuals’ perception of their competence and worthiness versus that an objective external observer.

Imposter Syndrome and our Beliefs.

Our overall set of beliefs are developing all the time. However, most of us will carry some of our childhood beliefs with us through adulthood. Most of these will be innocuous most of the time. But some of them will, sometimes, impede our performance as high functioning, inter-dependent, adults. As adults, we benefit from identifying our limiting beliefs, and developing more valuable beliefs.

By way of an example, a common limiting belief with Imposter Syndrome is ‘I must compare myself to others’. This can be re-framed to ‘I live my own life on my own terms’ or ‘I have a unique set of character strengths, as do others’. In turn the re-framed beliefs can underpin valuable affirmations such as ‘Because I live my own life, I enjoy the successes of others’. Or ‘The fact that I choose to live my life authentically means I only compare myself against my own standards’.

A standard element of working with Perma Hypnotherapy is developing a high degree of self-awareness via exploring your characters strengths, values, beliefs and limiting beliefs. This paves the way to defining your identity. In turn, this leaves you ideally placed to choose your own best future and use trance to support you in getting there. Working with Solution Focused Hypnotherapy is particularly well suited to personal development in this area. By its very nature, it opens up the pathways between the parts we know and recognise as ‘us’ and the deeper levels of our wisdom: ideal for when we’re ready to take those big steps forward.

So, for those who are ready to break free from imposter syndrome, I have developed Hypnotherapy for Imposter Syndrome: a comprehensive ten session program which will give you the insight, tools and techniques to break free. Not only that, you will learn all you need to know to continue developing your beliefs about yourself and your fit with the world around you to thrive as a high functioning inter-dependent adult.

 

Hypnotherapy for Imposter Syndrome Program Benefits

• Gain deep insight on how to use modern hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis

• Build your own toolbox of analytical and hypnotic processes

• Let go of past mistakes and historic emotional ‘baggage’

• Become adept at using trance for beneficial purposes

• Develop a compelling vision of your chosen future

• Beat those limiting beliefs

Hypnotherapy for Imposter Syndrome Program Outline

Session one – I’ll talk you through the brain model we use to understand therapeutic trance. We will develop this model progressively and you will become an expert in it in no time. This builds a solid understanding of how therapeutic trance actually works. Then we’ll kick our heels back and enjoy a lovely gently trance. We’ll close the session with any questions. After the session, I’ll send you your first suite of hypnosis downloads, notes on developing your thought patterns, and an Imposter Syndrome assessment to provide you with a baseline to build on.

From Session two – and subsequent sessions – we will broadly follow the structure of Solution Focused Hypnotherapy sessions: we’ll develop the brain model and introduce areas of strategic personal development, do what we call scaling, and then you’ll identify some small steps forward. This session’s trance is a gentle introduction to therapeutic trance – moving beyond using trance for relaxation only. After the session. I’ll send you a recording very similar to this session’s trance and you’ll explore your character strengths and personal values to continue developing you at a strategic level.

In session three, we complete the brain-model and our understanding of what therapeutic hypnosis really is. The trance session introduces you to a highly-effective hypnotic processes – one you can use any time you want. After the session, you’ll explore your personal values, beliefs / limiting beliefs and how you can use this insight to support living your best life.

 

 

 

The Hypnotherapy for Imposter Syndrome program Continues

Our fourth is devoted to a Solution Focused discussion centred around you personal work on limiting beliefs. I’ll also introduce you to the concept of ‘Flow’ to continue building you personal development toolbox.

Session five introduces another concept for your toolbox: the model of neurological levels (not as scary as it sounds) and how you can use this strategically to diminish imposter syndrome. The trance session has been developed for letting go of the ‘baggage’ from all those instances that have given rise to the painful emotions you may be carrying around – possibly without even realising it. With the supporting download, you can work through this process any time there-after.

Session six introduces self-hypnosis (you’ll be well practiced in using trance by this time), further building the tools available to you. We will do one or two ad-libbed short trance sessions to demonstrate different self-hypno techniques. The sessions’ supporting notes will give you plenty of further ideas to develop your own self-hypno capabilities.

In session seven, we have a bit of a re-cap as we begin to pull the many threads of the PERMA model together. We do a different type of trance this time – one that will encourage you to explore your connections with the world around you. You’ll get an extended version to keep. The supporting notes will provide you with unique insight of the PERMA model and consider Imposter Syndrome form an alternative perspective.

The Hypnotherapy for Imposter Syndrome program concludes

With a strong set of foundations in place, session eight sees us looking to the future and using hypnotic processes for supporting you in achieving your long-term goals: not just consigning Imposter Syndrome to your personal history. The trance session will encourage you to consider your long-term future and the supporting notes align with this by providing you with a complimentary analytic approach to thinking about your long-term future.

In session nine, we have a Solution Focused discussion about your future life based on your analytic personal work. The trance session connects you to your future life. The supporting notes give you a deep insight in to the development of PERMA hypnotherapy and a comprehensive case study which serves to both re-cap many of the areas we will have explored and detail how the knowledge, skills, and insight you will have developed can be applied to a wide range of areas of your wellbeing.

Our final session is intentionally unstructured. This gives us the space to reflect on the past, the present and the future to best serve your needs.

And Also

Accompanying the Hypnotherapy for Imposter Syndrome program is a set of notes, exercises, and hypnosis downloads for you to work through in-between sessions (and, of course, keep forever). Sessions are, notionally, an hour each – it is no problem if they run over: they often do. Between each session, you will work through a series of exercises and learning materials to maximise the value of our time together. Typically, this requires 7-10 hours between each session. It is possible to do these sessions on a weekly basis while others choose to do a session every two weeks to give them plenty of time to do the work: the choice is yours and we can flex to best suit your schedule and needs.

 

PERMA Hypnotherapy is available online throughout the English speaking world.