Imposter syndrome therapy for people who just got promoted.
Staff engineer, new manager, first-time founder, the partner who finally made it. The job changed and nobody told you the rules.
What it sounds like from the inside
Imposter syndrome tends to show up right after the promotion you worked for. Things I hear:
- You got the title and started waiting for someone to notice the mistake.
- You still write code at night because it's the only part of the job that feels like proof.
- You over-prepare for every meeting and still feel like you're winging it.
- You put the promotion down to timing, a good manager, or the reorg.
- Your last review was ninety percent positive and you can only quote the other ten.
- You're the only person in the room who looks like you, and you feel it in every calibration meeting.
- You've started turning down visibility because the upside doesn't feel worth the exposure.
This is one of the more common reasons people in tech come to see me.
Why it spikes after a level change
The skills that got you promoted are usually not the ones the new job runs on. A senior engineer becomes a staff engineer and the work shifts from solving problems to persuading people who don't report to you. An engineer becomes a manager and loses the daily evidence that shipping used to provide. A founder raises a round and the company suddenly needs someone they've never been.
So the feeling of not knowing what you're doing is partly accurate. You don't yet, and the first year at a new level is for learning it. Imposter syndrome is what happens when that learning curve gets read as evidence of fraud.
It's also possible it isn't imposter syndrome. Some environments are hostile and some roles are a bad fit, and telling you to believe in yourself in those situations would be bad advice. Part of the early work is figuring out which situation you're in.
How I work with it
Much of it is cognitive-behavioral: catching the loop that turns ambiguous feedback into a verdict, and building a more accurate account of what you've done. That sounds simple. The loop has usually been running since school, so it takes some work.
Underneath that there's often something about concealment. My doctoral research looked at how people hide parts of themselves in groups and what it costs them, and I see the same thing in senior tech roles constantly: the belief that you have to perform a version of yourself to belong. That's where the lasting change tends to come from.
From there I use Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to move the question from how you prove you deserve the role to what kind of leader you want to be. The second question is a much better thing to organize a career around.
More About MePrivate, out of network, and less complicated than it sounds.
I don't bill insurance, so nothing about your therapy reaches an insurer, an employer, or a background check. Most of my clients use out-of-network benefits. I provide a superbill after each session, and the plans common at tech companies often reimburse a large share of the $200 fee. Sessions are HSA and FSA eligible.
In person in Midtown Manhattan, or by secure video from anywhere in New York State. See fees and a worked reimbursement example.
Questions people ask before reaching out
Some self-doubt at a new level is normal and even useful. It's worth treating when it starts driving decisions, like turning down opportunities, overworking to compensate, or thinking about stepping back from a role you earned.
That worry comes up a lot. In my experience people keep their standards and lose the part where every day feels like an audit. Most do better work once the dread is out of the way.
It varies, but this is one of the more contained things I work on. Many people notice a shift within a few months of weekly sessions.