The Impostor Syndrome

The Zoom session did not record any shuffling

Of chairs or removing of masks but an early emphasis

On the “impostor,” one with a coiled identity,

Never quite real, perhaps ruled by a door keeper

Who will always maintain order, proper dress,

Provides a sense that psychology, the psychic life

Has already set the table in our virtual room.

2.

After all this is theater, with the instructor

Emphasizing this “as if” personality without

A center, one that creates an impenetrable

Psychological Wall, as well as precarious sense of self.

The subject, now a “she” in this precarious tale,

Is estranged from herself, driven by interior forces

And might seem creative to others but inside

Lacks confidence, from an early wounding

And driven to compensation and the performative.

3.

How to bridge this gap, explore the dark shadow

Areas trapped in the unconscious, and to uncover

The inter-generational, archetypal aches

Compulsions and psychic distress, the absence

Of love and the idealization of others.

Then the instructor presents the patient’s dream

That show a small open door to an unlocked closet

That seems the door to the unconscious

Where for Jung resides the naked truth,

A psychological entrance that is narrow

And hard to enter. And a mirror of reality.

4.

Another space, another time, another

Patient who hears the tale, the dream

And comes to realize he was a prisoner,

An imposter to himself, a spectator to life,

Caught in a negative thought cycle, talking

To himself, holding mirrors up to his image,

Asking “Who am I?” but lost in the language

Of his life on the surface, the predictable

Parade in the “as if” universe with mirrors

Returning the false remains of a flat psychic life.

5.

Jung enters the picture as if on call

Reminding the class that without

An archetypal ground, including the gift

Of symbolism and attention to the unconscious

We remain hypnotized by the self, trapped

In the image for self-protection, in costume

Dress that hides the true person, avoiding

The encounter with one’s own shadow,

A retreat from reality to an imaginary world

With the real self, unavailable, under the mask

Hidden in plain sight with imposter trappings.

The body enters the inner darkness, below

The surface is brittle, a wasteland

A heap of broken images.

6.

The Imposter Syndrome begins in childhood

Often with stories of a broken family,

Despair, debt, a father and his affairs,

And a daughter who hid her true self

Made up stories about her life, altered truths,

Burdened others with her unhappiness.

For the imposter is filled with shame

From their performance during which the inner

Must be buried every day, with no display

Of authenticity. She is trapped in her wounds.

7.

She now lives under a façade, defenses

That obfuscate the body experience, hiding

Shadow aspects, where depth resides,

Appearing perfect on the surface, a strategy

To survive, always uneasy, living between

A stellar optimism and a crush of despair,

Relationships based on disguise,

The “as if” theater of costume talk.

8.

Now other voices, in other rooms

Suggest that creative “as-if” fictions

Can have a healing function, as in

A dream rich in metaphor and symbol

That might introduce shadow and depth,

With psychic light shed on imposter

Self, providing insight about early

Wounding and trauma, that with guidance

And therapy can signal growth.

9.

But others can stay in this syndrome

For a lifetime, this “as if” world,

An impostor, behind a mask

Residing in Jung’s false Self,

Reliving early trauma, harking

Back to parents, early wounds,

Despair, emptiness, no idealized other.

Then the wall the child must summon.

10.

The room turns and turns again

As it was writing its own tales.

The Imposter is now powerless,

So, she becomes a “femme fatale”

To foster attention. The psyche

Looks to expand itself. Now

Eating disorder, pills for depression,

And a facelift, drifting away from

Self, toward “as if” fragmentation.

11.

We hear the poet Rilke say

That we look for mirrors

So, we can take off our makeup

In the search for Self. Jung

Now speaks of resistance,

Not the master of our house.

Porn-addiction and body issues.

We cannot be in our psyche

If not truly in the body.

12.

A Ukrainian poet speaks of entering

Life through the eye of a needle,

Patients and passers-by parade

Their dreams on the Zoom link

That are deep in a narcissistic field

Full of primitive affect, announcing

“The Shadow Knows,” quietly

Stumbling towards that tension

Of opposites, that most sought union

Between the conscious and unconscious

Where the Impostor Syndrome wanes.

13.

The psychologist James Hillman

Writes that we “individuate,” move

Out of the “Impostor” role, out of

A one-sidedness through pain and injury,

Internal gratification rather than external.

The “As If” soul is shattered, in descent;

Ascent is a psychological process, a healing.

We abandon singularity for a union

With self, soul and the world.

Our charge is to look in the mirror

And they are everywhere.

Note: This long poem as based on a Nov. 11, 2023 seminar, via Zoom, offered by the C.G. Jung Foundation in New York City. The seminar was led by Susan E. Schwartz, PhD. I chose a poetic form because the presentation that was psychological, metaphorical, and mythological, seemed to lend itself to this treatment.