Imposter syndrome and the online practitioner... what's really going on

I remember my first placement vividly. A wonderful college, an amazing mentor, and me...  about to see my first real clients, absolutely convinced I was going to be sick.

The thoughts came thick and fast. How can I, me, Jo-Anne Mac Millan,  the foreigner, living in this beautiful country, have anything to offer these people? What if I make them worse? What if I can't remember what to say or do? What if I don't understand their problem? I have so much to work on myself. How can I possibly be a guide to anyone?

I have been a practising transpersonal therapist since 2009 and a business mentor to practitioners for years. And I can tell you that those thoughts, or a version of them, have visited almost every practitioner I have ever worked with. Including, at various points, me.

If you are building your practice online and imposter syndrome has shown up uninvited, here is what is actually going on, and what to do with it.

What imposter syndrome actually is

Imposter syndrome is the persistent internal experience of believing you are not as competent as others perceive you to be, and the accompanying fear that at some point, someone is going to find you out. It was first named in 1978 by psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes, who observed it primarily in high-achieving women. Decades of research since have shown it to be extraordinarily common, particularly among people in helping professions and those who are highly conscientious about the quality of their work.

That last part is worth sitting with. Imposter syndrome tends to cluster around people who care deeply about doing a good job. The practitioner who never questions whether they are good enough is rarely the one with the richest inner life or the most rigorous ethical practice. The doubt, uncomfortable as it is, is often a signal of integrity.

Why it gets louder online

Imposter syndrome has always been present in private practice. But moving online amplifies it in a specific and predictable way, and understanding why can make it considerably less frightening.

When you work with clients face-to-face, your competence is demonstrated in the room, in real time, to one person at a time. When you move online, you are suddenly visible to many people simultaneously. Your words are written down. Your face is on a website. Your opinions are published. The exposure feels categorically different, because it is.

Add to that the comparison trap of social media. You are watching other practitioners who appear to be thriving, who seem utterly confident, who appear to have figured out something you have not. What you are seeing, of course, is a carefully curated highlight reel, but your nervous system does not always know the difference between a curated reel and reality.

• You are more visible online than you have ever been in private practice, which activates self-consciousness in a new way.
• You are creating content, which means your thinking is on record, and that feels exposing for people trained to stay in the background.
• You are operating in a domain (online business) where you are genuinely less experienced than in your clinical work, and that gap can feel much larger than it is.
• You are comparing your behind-the-scenes to everyone else's front of house.

The specific flavour practitioners experience

In my experience working with therapists and coaches who are building online, imposter syndrome tends to show up in a few particular ways:

The credentials spiral.
Convincing yourself you need one more qualification, one more training, one more certification before you are ready to launch. The course becomes the reason to wait rather than the preparation to move.

The comparison collapse.
Looking at a well-established practitioner with a decade of online presence and measuring your beginning against their middle. This is not a fair comparison. It is not even a useful one. But it feels very real.

The 'who am I to' thought.
Who am I to offer this? Who am I to charge for this? Who am I to put myself forward? This one is particularly common among practitioners whose training has emphasised humility, selflessness, and service, all qualities that are genuinely valuable in the therapy room and genuinely unhelpful when you are trying to build a sustainable business.

The paralysis before publishing.
The blog post that is written but never posted. The offer that's ready but not launched. The email that sits in drafts. The action that is perpetually almost taken.

What to actually do with it

Imposter syndrome does not go away by being talked out of it. You cannot logic your way out of a feeling. But you can learn to work with it rather than waiting for it to stop before you move.

• Name it when it arrives. 'This is imposter syndrome. I recognise you.' That naming creates a small but significant distance between you and the thought - enough to act anyway.
• Collect evidence. Keep a record (a document, a folder, a note on your phone) of client feedback, moments where your work made a difference, things you have learned and applied. Imposter syndrome operates by selectively ignoring evidence. Give yourself a way to access it.
• Act before you feel ready. Readiness is a feeling, and feelings follow action more reliably than they precede it. The practitioner who waits until they feel confident before launching will wait a very long time.
• Get support. You would not ask a client to white-knuckle it through something difficult alone. The same applies to you. Whether that is supervision, peer support, or working with a mentor who understands both the professional and the personal dimensions of building online, the right support makes an enormous difference.

A final thought

That first placement I mentioned at the start of this post? I showed up. I sat with my clients. I did not make them worse. Slowly, session by session, the fear did not disappear, but it became quieter, and my trust in myself grew louder.

That is what happens when you move anyway. The confidence does not arrive first, and then you act. You act, and the confidence follows.

If imposter syndrome is one of the things keeping you from building the online practice you know you are ready for, it is worth talking about it with someone who understands both sides of it.
Book a Connection Call and let's have that conversation.

Ready to move anyway?

Book a Connection Call and let's talk about what building your online practice actually looks like - the practical side and the personal side.

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