IX Coach

Imposter Syndrome Coaching: What a Coach Does and What the Evidence Shows

Does coaching help with imposter syndrome?

Imposter syndrome coaching means working with a coach on how you read your own success. Two trials found lower scores in specific groups; evidence is limited.

Imposter syndrome coaching is working with a coach, one to one or in a group, on the pattern of feeling like a fraud despite real evidence that you are competent. Whether it helps is a fair question to ask first, and the honest answer is that the evidence is limited but not empty. Two randomized trials, one in young trainees at industrial companies and one in women physician trainees, found lower impostor scores in the coached groups than in comparison groups. Neither tested a mid-career professional, an AI coach, or what happens years later.

Imposter syndrome is also not a diagnosis, and when it arrives together with ongoing low mood, panic or hopelessness, a clinician is the right first stop rather than a coach. The rest of this page covers what the term means, how common it is (the famous number is shakier than it sounds), what a coach actually does, what the two trials found and did not find, and how to decide where to start.

What imposter syndrome is, and what it is not

The idea comes from the psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes, who published it in 1978 under the name impostor phenomenon. They were describing more than 150 highly successful women they had worked with over about five years, in individual therapy, in groups and in college classes: women with doctorates, professional standing and academic honors who still believed they were not really intelligent and had fooled everyone who thought otherwise. Their sample was mostly white, middle to upper class women between 20 and 45, and about a third were therapy clients who had come in for something else. They wrote that in their clinical experience the pattern was less frequent and less intense in men, and they flagged that as something that needed research. A later systematic review reports impostor feelings in both men and women.

It is a described experience rather than a diagnosis. Clance and Imes wrote that women who experience it do not fall into any one diagnostic category, and that the symptoms they saw most often were generalized anxiety, lack of self-confidence, depression, and frustration at not meeting self-imposed standards. A reference article on the topic states that it is not a formal diagnosis in the DSM-5, the American psychiatric manual. The word syndrome is the popular name, and it can suggest a medical condition the research never established. What exists is a well-documented pattern and questionnaires to measure it, the Clance Impostor Phenomenon Scale being the one the systematic review below reports as used most.

Explore: impostor phenomenon

How common is it? The 70 percent figure

You will often see the claim that about 70 percent of people experience imposter syndrome at some point. A 2011 review of the research states that figure and cites a 2007 news article in The Chronicle of Higher Education for it. We could not open that article, so we do not know what measurement, if any, sits behind the number. We are not treating it as established.

The best check we found is a 2020 systematic review in the Journal of General Internal Medicine by Bravata and colleagues. It pooled 62 studies with 14,161 participants and reported prevalence estimates from 9 percent to 82 percent, depending on the screening tool and the cutoff score used. That is a range, not a rate. Even the low end is a lot of people and the high end covers most, but there is no single figure you can quote, and any page that gives you one is choosing a questionnaire and a cutoff for you.

What a coach actually does about it

There is no single standard method that we found, and coaches differ. What can be said is what two documented sources describe. The first is Clance and Imes themselves, who were therapists writing in 1978, so this is clinical practice and not a trial. They described several things at once: a group of other high achievers, where one person's secret lets others share theirs and where each person can see in someone else how the self-doubt ignores the evidence; small experiments such as studying for an exam while expecting to do well; and a homework assignment of keeping a record of the positive feedback you receive and how you keep yourself from taking it in. They also noted that the pattern is often a guarded secret that only comes out after several sessions, and that homework has to be given in small steps, since giving up the old habits too fast can bring acute anxiety.

The second is the coaching used in a 2020 randomized trial by Zanchetta and colleagues, which ran as three two-hour one-to-one sessions, two weeks apart. According to the authors, the coaches worked on self-efficacy beliefs, on reflecting on abilities, on asking peers for feedback, on concerns about making errors, and on how participants explained their successes and failures to themselves. In plain terms, a session is mostly conversation that looks at how you explain your own results, what you are afraid will happen if you are seen to be fallible, and what small actions would test that fear. Whether a coach would notice and say so when what you describe sounds like something other than a coaching topic is worth asking about, and the questions later on this page cover it.

Explore: attributional retraining · self efficacy · the inner critic work

What the research says about coaching for it

Start with the gap. The Bravata review searched the literature up to May 2018 and reported that no published studies evaluated treatments for impostor syndrome. Its authors recommended that future research evaluate treatments. Since then at least two randomized trials of coaching have appeared, and they are the best direct evidence we found. They are also narrow, so here is what each one covers.

Zanchetta and colleagues (Frontiers in Psychology, 2020) randomized 103 young employees, mostly male with an average age of about 18, who had been hired as trainees at German industrial companies, to coaching, to a training program, or to no intervention. Impostor scores fell in the coaching group and were lower than in both other groups at a follow-up five weeks later. The authors list limits: a small sample, young participants, and self-reported outcomes that can be influenced by what people think the researchers hope to see.

Mann and colleagues (JAMA Network Open, 2023) randomized 1,017 women physician trainees across 26 training institutions to a four-month online group coaching program, delivered by certified physician coaches with live video calls, anonymous written coaching and self-study modules, or to a comparison group without it. On an eight-item impostor scale, scores fell by about 1.4 points in the coached group and about 0.15 in the comparison group. The authors note that people chose to take part, that only about 40 percent responded at the end, that only women were studied, and that they did not measure what happens after the program ends. Fewer coached participants responded at the end (30 percent) than comparison participants (51 percent).

Taken together, this supports saying that coaching has been associated with lower impostor scores in two specific groups over the short term, in studies run by researchers who disclosed the limits above. It does not show that coaching works for everyone with these feelings, that one kind of coaching is better than another, that the effect lasts, or that an AI coach does the same. Neither trial tested an AI coach.

When a clinician is the better first stop

Impostor feelings do not always travel alone. The Bravata review reports that they are often found alongside depression and anxiety, that impostor scores correlate with both, and that they are associated with burnout and lower job satisfaction. Its authors recommended that clinicians assess for impostor feelings and for the conditions that commonly accompany them. Clance and Imes saw the same overlap in 1978, listing anxiety and depression among the symptoms they met most often.

So if the fraud feeling comes with low mood that does not lift, panic, trouble sleeping or eating, hopelessness, or a sense that you cannot get through ordinary days, a licensed clinician is the right first conversation, and a coach is a possible addition later, not a substitute. Coaching is built for working with a pattern in someone who is otherwise functioning, and it is not designed to treat a mental health condition. If you are unsure which side you are on, the page on how to know if you need therapy or coaching sets out the difference. If you are having thoughts of ending your life or of hurting yourself, you do not have to wait until it feels bad enough. In the United States, you can call or text 988, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, or chat at 988lifeline.org; it is free, confidential and available 24/7. If you are somewhere else, findahelpline.com lists verified helplines in more than 175 countries, and if you are in immediate danger, call your local emergency number.

Coach, group, mentor or app: how to think about the options

Because the feeling is so often kept secret, the plain act of saying it to someone is part of what many approaches have in common. Clance and Imes recommended a group of other high achievers partly for that reason, and the group-coaching trial above used a group format. A trusted colleague or a mentor who has done your kind of work can do part of this at no cost, and a coach adds a structured process and someone who is not part of your workplace.

When you speak to a coach, it is reasonable to ask what they do when a client describes something that sounds like depression or anxiety, whether they claim specific outcomes and on what basis, and what a first month looks like. Those are questions to ask, not research findings, and a coach who cannot answer the first one plainly is worth thinking twice about. If you are comparing apps and tools rather than people, the separate guide on the best app for imposter syndrome covers that choice.

Explore: overcoming imposter syndrome · self compassion

Frequently asked questions

Does coaching help imposter syndrome? Two randomized trials, in young industrial trainees and in women physician trainees, found lower impostor scores after coaching than in comparison groups. The evidence is limited to those groups and short follow-up, and it does not cover AI coaching.

Is imposter syndrome a mental illness? It is not a diagnosis in the DSM-5. It is a described pattern, first named by Clance and Imes in 1978, that often appears together with anxiety or depression, which are conditions a clinician can assess.

How many people have imposter syndrome? A 2020 systematic review of 62 studies reported estimates from 9 percent to 82 percent, depending on the questionnaire and the cutoff. The commonly quoted 70 percent is not something we could trace to a measurement.

Should I see a therapist or a coach? If the feeling comes with persistent low mood, panic or hopelessness, start with a clinician. If you are otherwise functioning and want to work on how you read your own success, coaching is one reasonable option.

Where IX Coach fits

This page is published by an AI coaching company, and that belongs on the table plainly. IX Coach is an AI coaching system you can talk to directly, designed around reflection, goal clarity and the move from insight to action, and available at any hour. If the pattern described above is the one you recognize, a conversation can be one place to look at how you explain your own results and what you are afraid of when you imagine being found out. It has not been tested in a trial on impostor feelings, so nothing on this page should be read as evidence that it reduces them. It is not designed to be a therapist, a crisis service or a replacement for a mentor or peer who knows you, and if what you are carrying matches the section above on when a clinician is the better first stop, that is where to go first.

Does coaching help with imposter syndrome?

Imposter syndrome coaching means working with a coach on how you read your own success. Two trials found lower scores in specific groups; evidence is limited.

Does coaching help imposter syndrome?

Two randomized trials, in young industrial trainees and in women physician trainees, found lower impostor scores after coaching than in comparison groups. The evidence is limited to those groups and short follow-up, and it does not cover AI coaching.

Is imposter syndrome a mental illness?

It is not a diagnosis in the DSM-5. It is a described pattern, first named by Clance and Imes in 1978, that often appears together with anxiety or depression, which are conditions a clinician can assess.

How many people have imposter syndrome?

A 2020 systematic review of 62 studies reported estimates from 9 percent to 82 percent, depending on the questionnaire and the cutoff. The commonly quoted 70 percent is not something we could trace to a measurement.

Should I see a therapist or a coach?

If the feeling comes with persistent low mood, panic or hopelessness, start with a clinician. If you are otherwise functioning and want to work on how you read your own success, coaching is one reasonable option.

Research

Practice this with IX Coach

Try this practice

Keep reading