If you’ve ever sat with a client and quietly wondered whether you know what you’re doing — despite the qualifications, the hours, the good outcomes — you’re in very good company. Imposter syndrome shows up often in this profession, and private practice, where there’s no team down the hall to reality-check you, tends to make it louder.
It’s more common than it feels
A 2020 systematic review commentary found reported rates of imposter syndrome ranging anywhere from 9% to 82%, depending heavily on how it was measured and who was studied — a wide range, but a clear signal that it’s a genuinely common experience rather than a personal failing. It affects people across genders and career stages, with some evidence that women report it more.
Why private practice makes it louder
- No colleagues in the next room to quietly confirm you handled something well.
- Client outcomes can be slow and hard to attribute, which leaves plenty of room for self-doubt to fill the gap.
- Running the business side alongside the clinical side adds a second area to feel unsure about, on top of the first.
- Comparing yourself to other practitioners’ polished websites and full books, without seeing their doubts or their quiet weeks.
Where supervision helps
The same review points to something worth taking seriously: structured career development activities — mentoring, coaching, supervision — measurably reduce the impact of imposter feelings, partly by strengthening a sense of organisational and professional support. That tracks with what supervision is for: a regular, external, honest check on your work, from someone whose job is to notice both what’s going well and what needs attention.
In STEP-UP terms, this sits mainly in SUPPORT and self-care (“U”) — a genuine sounding board that can affirm competence you can’t always see in yourself, alongside the TRACK and EDUCATE work of confirming your clinical judgement is sound. Naming the imposter feeling out loud, to someone qualified to tell you honestly whether it matches reality, tends to take a lot of its power away.
What to bring to supervision
- The specific moment you doubted yourself, not just the general feeling — it’s easier to examine one decision than a vague sense of inadequacy.
- A case where you know the outcome was good, and ask your supervisor to help you see why, rather than putting it down to luck.
- Patterns — if the doubt shows up with a particular client type, presentation, or situation, that’s useful data, not just anxiety.
Getting started
If this sounds familiar, it’s not a sign supervision isn’t working for you — it’s exactly the kind of thing supervision is for. Get in touch if you’d like to talk it through.
You can reach me here, or fill in the supervision enquiry form below.