All three women have tried various treatments in an attempt to relieve their imposturous feelings.

“I’ve done CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) twice and it worked, to an extent. It’s very much on you – you have to keep working at it. Some things work, some things don’t,” says Amy.

“I tried group therapy too, which was really good. It focused on blaming yourself for things, and being really hard on yourself – as well as struggling with procrastination. I always look at things and think: what’s the point, I won’t be able to do them. There’s no point in trying…

“The one thing I’ve found that helps is the five-minute rule. When you’re faced with all these big tasks that you feel you can’t complete, you simply say ‘I’ll just try it for five minutes and see how it goes’. After five minutes you’re so into the task that you think, okay I can manage five minutes. So then you try for five minutes longer and you keep going.”

However, one type of treatment does not fit all, as Helen has discovered.

“I see my doctor once a week for an hour, and we’ve had 10 sessions so far. You need to find a good therapist. It can be difficult – it took me three or four attempts, because sometimes you can just clash with a therapist. But the right one makes a world of difference.

“I also have a mental health journal and I write everything down. If something is bothering me then I write it down, and then I write down all of the evidence as to why it shouldn’t be bothering me.

“In addition, my office is very supportive of mental health. They let me work from home on days when I feel a bit overwhelmed.”

Finally, Tanya has found help through an inspirational mentor.

“I speak with my mentor twice a month. She keeps me grounded and makes me focus on why I started in the industry, as well as how valued I am – whether that’s at the place I’m working now, or somewhere else in the future. She reminds me that I shouldn’t give up just because of one or two bad experiences,” she explains.

“She encourages me to use my voice, and not feel silenced. I continually have to remember that change can only happen if I want it too.”

To a certain degree, we’re all winging it. But only we know what’s going on inside our heads, which is why we need to share those internal thoughts to see change.

“My best friend said to me a few weeks ago, ‘I have really bad imposter syndrome’,” explains Amy. “And he’s only just admitted that to me. I think part of the problem is that no one really talks about it.”

People might not talk openly about it, but most people can relate to it. As Pauline Clance told Harvard social psychologist Amy Cuddy in her book, Presence: “If I could do it all over again, I would call it the impostor experience, because it’s not a syndrome or a complex or a mental illness, it’s something almost everyone experiences.”

*Names have been changed

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Images: iStock / Finn Hackshaw

Living with impostor syndrome: “I thought they were going to take away my promotion”