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Rachel Morris (00:02.638)
Hello and welcome to Work Truths Off the Record, the podcast that opens up honest conversations about what it means to be human at work. I'm Rachel Morris, a coach and your guide as we uncover the stories, struggles and triumphs behind the professional mask. In this series, we're focusing on the imposter phenomenon. If you've ever doubted your own success or felt you're just one step away from being found out, this series is for you.
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Expect fresh insights, honest personal stories, and tools from leading experts to help you feel more grounded, confident, and connected in your working life. And today I am delighted to be joined by Charlotte Aloka. Charlotte's an integrative therapist based here in London whose work focuses significantly on people who struggle with self-doubt and low self-esteem, which in my mind means she's perfectly placed.
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to give us insight into what therapists see behind closed doors. So Charlotte, a huge warm welcome. I'm really pleased to be talking to you today.
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Charlotte Allocca (01:08.775)
Thank you very much, Rachel. It's lovely to be here. Thanks for inviting me on.
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Rachel Morris (01:13.014)
You're so very welcome. So, Charlotte, I've talked a little bit about you being a therapist and that these conversations come up in your work, but could you just give our listeners a little bit of insight about your relationship with the topic?
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Charlotte Allocca (01:25.767)
Yeah, of course. So I mean, on a professional level, it comes up a lot in the room. And we'll get into that. On a personal level, I was reflecting on this just before I came on to do this, because until about an hour ago, I didn't think I had impulsive phenomenon. And then I suddenly thought, who am I to have any opinions that are of any interest to anybody about it? But I quickly reframed that as I would encourage my clients to have done and thought.
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No, okay, that's just a little bit of healthy self doubt. So I don't think I suffer from imposter phenomenon on a personal level. On a professional level, my relationship with it is that it either turns up in the room in a very overt sense. A client may say in an intro call, I am struggling with imposter phenomenon. I'm struggling at work.
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or in the room it comes out and I can see it and little things about work come up or about their sense of worth and we unpick it from there.
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Rachel Morris (02:31.726)
Thank you, Charlotte. It's interesting that the words kind of self-doubt have come up already because in some of the conversations across these series, our listeners will be hearing people talk about the healthy purpose of doubt and actually how useful it is for us in some instances. But within the world of imposter feelings and thoughts, the sense that actually that self-doubt
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Charlotte Allocca (02:47.603)
Hmm.
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Rachel Morris (02:56.366)
has no evidence behind it because it's being experienced at times where people have done something again and again and again and have a huge track record behind them but at that point in the doubt is kicking in.
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Charlotte Allocca (03:07.481)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. It's about the disconnect for them between what someone is capable of and what they believe they're capable of, the narrative that they're telling themselves, that sort of internalised voice. It's nothing to do with what they can actually achieve. It's all about the story.
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Rachel Morris (03:29.774)
Interesting, thank you. look forward to digging more deeply into this with you, Charlotte. And I should also just let our listeners know, you and I connected because you'd written a piece about how imposter thoughts and feelings actually surface in your profession. So amongst counsellors and particularly more newly qualified counsellors, if I recall correctly. So if there are any counsellors, any therapists that are listening, I think it will be really, really useful for us to kind of add that bit of insight in as well.
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Charlotte Allocca (03:44.147)
Mmm.
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Mmm.
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Charlotte Allocca (03:58.228)
Thank you, yes, and yes, sorry, no, go on.
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Rachel Morris (04:01.867)
No, you're fine. So, if I were to say the imposter phenomenon, what does it mean to you, Charlotte, through your professional therapeutic lens?
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Charlotte Allocca (04:11.719)
So as I said, I think it's that it's the discord between the two voices. People who are suffering, struggling with impulsive phenomenon are generally some of the most insightful and reflective, capable, conscientious. They're sort of every employer's dream really, but they can't see that because for whatever reason they have been knocked off track.
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by a voice that tells them inside, I'm going to get found out. I'm not enough. I'm not good enough.
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they've possibly always thought that. And something has triggered it now. Maybe it's a promotion or a new opportunity. They've pushed themselves slightly outside of their comfort zone, which may in one person just encourage a bit more productivity and adrenaline-fuelled success. But in somebody already struggling with a slightly anxiety-fuelled feelings of imposter, imposter phenomenon.
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They really struggle. It can be crippling. Really crippling.
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Rachel Morris (05:20.535)
Yes, we're across this series, we're hearing stories of the significant human toll that these feelings and thoughts can take. Significant, yeah, it's quite, and as you say, quite crippling for some people at times. What are the...
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Charlotte Allocca (05:28.604)
Yeah.
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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm very sad because they're turning down and avoiding challenges and opportunities that are well within their grasp because they think this is the day that I will get found out. This is the push that will be the push too far.
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Rachel Morris (05:56.558)
Charlotte, you have quite a unique insight into this human experience because in a confidential profession, your conversations are happening behind closed doors. Your contracts with your client is to bring as much truth and as much openness as they can. And that suggests to me that you will get insight that could be useful for our listeners about the kind of signs that tell you that somebody is really struggling.
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suffering at the moment with a feeling or a thought of being an imposter. What are the telltale signs you see that could be useful for other people to know about?
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Charlotte Allocca (06:26.256)
Yeah.
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Charlotte Allocca (06:30.611)
So it's when somebody comes and they may come with, so as I said, it's either their presenting issue, am actually currently working, so obviously completely anonymised and can't say anything about them, but I'm currently working with two clients, incredibly successful in senior leadership teams in their companies.
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very high positions, couldn't possibly have got there without being extremely good at what they do, both crippled by imposter syndromes. They came with it. So that was very overt. I am struggling with this. With other clients, and so we get into it quite directly, but with other clients.
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It can come in after three or four sessions. They may be coming about something relational. They may be coming about something. They may be coming about a broad spectrum anxiety syndrome. They may be coming with generalized anxiety. And we'll start to pick apart the areas, the triggers, where it's coming up. And you start to hear things like...
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you know, at work, you know, if I don't get that they're constantly reassurance seeking at work, but the reassurance doesn't last less and less time, lands less and less, that they are incapable of internalizing success, but very, very good at internalizing mistakes. They find it very difficult to normalize mistakes, that everybody makes mistakes. They...
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When they have success at work, they can't see that, they just move the goalposts. They just raise the bar. So they're blind to their own achievements and hyper-focusing on mistakes and things that have gone wrong and hyper-vigilant for criticism or any sign that what they're doing isn't in line.
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Rachel Morris (08:34.861)
And just for our listeners, you've used the term hypervigilance. Can you just help people to understand what that is, so what we see or hear?
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Charlotte Allocca (08:40.283)
Yeah, sure. Just really, really scrutinising themselves, really, really getting analytical, getting forensic about how they're being received at work by colleagues, by their line managers.
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Um, and I will force them to come back to something that's gone well and really sit with it and really make them try to internalize it. Get hyper vigilant about that. You know, let's get, let's get a hyper focused on how you felt when that did go, Oh yeah, but anyone could have done that. And, yeah. Well, when they sent that really nice email, they didn't really mean it. And I just got lucky getting this job. I don't really belong here. I'm a complete fraud.
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I mean, I get that a lot. I'm a fraud.
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Rachel Morris (09:28.151)
So if we think about what it sounds like when a client's in a session with you, phrases like, I'm a fraud, or phrases or words like, but it wasn't me, it was my team. Are they the kind of things that you're listening out for?
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Charlotte Allocca (09:40.07)
Yeah, and I reframe that as, because what I hear when they say that, which they may never have said, they may say, I am a fraud. I would probably, in my head, they are saying, I am not enough. And I am not good enough. But it's much more fundamental than I am not good enough. It's I am not enough.
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And it may be that in other areas of their life, things are going fine. They're in good relationships. They have a wide social circle. They have other interests. And that's why it's so separate from low self-esteem, for example, which tends to be much more global. But the imposter phenomenon is so success-focused, and that may have come from...
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Well, it may have come from lots of things in their sort of, so we look at the, I don't know if you want me to get in yet. We may look at the causation of it. So, you know, where did that voice start from? Where was that, where do you first remember thinking, hearing that I am not enough feeling that?
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Rachel Morris (10:36.205)
Please do, please do.
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Charlotte Allocca (10:50.349)
and it might be quite a small child that will kind of take them back, I will take them back. They may have come from a childhood where they were maybe high achievers as children. so that became success, kind of became their identity.
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you know, and it became more and more what was expected and then it becomes more and more to live up to. That is actually quite common. And then those high achieving children often grow up to work in quite high achieving competitive environments and they're doing fine. But if there is a trigger,
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back to that small child that felt, I doing this well enough? Am I working hard enough? Am I going to get good GCSEs? Am I going to get good exam results? Am I going to get 10 out of 10 in my spelling test? Whatever they needed to take home to mum and dad. If that is triggered, then imposter phenomenon can be triggered.
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and that deck of cards can come crashing down and all those achievements can then feel very, very fragile and precarious. But it can also come from people who weren't necessarily high achievers, but who just weren't ever told that they were good enough, who just weren't ever made to feel that they were enough when they were children.
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that didn't walk around thinking, yes, it's important that I do well at school, but even if I don't, my family think I'm amazing. My parents love me unconditionally. If you come from a place where you've never felt enough, it's really hard in a competitive workplace to feel you're pulling it off.
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Rachel Morris (12:34.743)
So there's a lot sitting underneath this feeling of whether it is being a fraud or I may not be enough. As I've been kind of working on this series, I've heard examples of belonging coming out as well. So either, you know, I have done something that meant that I was different to my family or did something different to the expectations of my family, or I find myself in an environment where people are different to me and that for some people that can be quite a significant factor when it comes to.
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Charlotte Allocca (12:36.903)
Yeah.
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Rachel Morris (13:04.363)
Am I, is it right I'm here? Am I gonna get found out that I am a fraud here? Have you ever experienced that in your work?
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Charlotte Allocca (13:06.255)
Anyone?
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Charlotte Allocca (13:11.408)
So just to clarify slightly more about what you mean, do you mean we're in an environment where you might be a bit underrepresented as you grow up?
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Rachel Morris (13:18.625)
may be underrepresented, absolutely. You might be working in an environment that traditionally your social class didn't welcome you into or those types of things.
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Charlotte Allocca (13:25.671)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So I've come across it actually, although I have been very much focusing on the workplace and that is where people come to me really with struggles. Another case that I'm thinking of is somebody who didn't come to me at all for imposter phenomenon, came to me for something very relational. But in the telling of his story and in the working with him,
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It came out around having had these feelings at school, having felt that socially he was in a different place. He'd got there academically, but was socially in a different place, having got a scholarship to somewhere where he didn't feel he fitted at all and that he slightly had to reinvent himself to survive. So that's another experience that if you live through that, you might breeze through that afterwards after you've thought, wow, that was
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tough and gone on for a few years. But then you get into a workplace and there can be a moment of doubt or a moment of anxiety in a situation outside your workplace where you just think, I'm not feeling like the best version of myself just now. And you go to work and the seed is sown. Maybe actually I'm a little bit, maybe I've been promoted beyond my ability. Maybe I can't do this. Maybe I'm actually no good at my job.
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maybe I'm rubbish at my job, maybe I'll say no to that presentation, maybe I'll say no to that promotion, maybe I'll say no to opportunities. But I think there's the sort of wider blogging, which I thought you might be referring to of...
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under representation, you if we don't turn up at work and see people who look like us, you know, if we don't meet ourselves at work, that can be really hard and that can go for everything. It will still go for women for sure. It will still, you know, it will go for whether it's ethnicity or social background, whatever it is, if you don't feel you're in your environment, that's another risk factor.
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Rachel Morris (15:28.429)
Yeah, yeah, certainly. I'd like to just go back to a word that you used before, because you talked about stories. And from a therapeutic, if we put your therapeutic lens on it, stories are quite a significant part of this whole wider picture, aren't they, Charlotte? Can you just talk to our listeners a little bit about stories and the role that stories may play in people's thoughts and feelings of not being enough or being a fraud?
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Charlotte Allocca (15:45.107)
Mmm.
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Charlotte Allocca (15:55.11)
Yeah, sure. Well, I think a lot of that comes from, touched on it with the, you may grow up having been, say you were a high achiever in your family and that becomes your family narrative.
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You know, we always say, say you come from a family of three children, that's three children, three completely different childhoods, six parents, you know, that everybody in that family is having an entirely different experience. You may have been brought up as the high achiever, you may have been brought up as the low achiever, and it may have been almost laughed off at the time. It may almost have been, yes, you know, so and so, she's not academic.
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She's not like so and so, you know, he's the one. And these beliefs get really, really powerfully interjected into us by our parents, primary caregivers, whoever's in charge. And we grow up believing them and they are our stories. And we use things along the way to build up our evidence to back up those stories.
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So therapeutically, there's quite a lot of work to be done to challenge those stories and to unpick them and to look at evidence for and against, know, what, tell me about that. That sounds like that was a coping strategy, being that person that got you through. Is that coping strategy serving you now? Is it helpful in any way or is it holding you back? And maybe it's time to put that coping strategy down.
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do a little bit sometimes of...
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Charlotte Allocca (17:30.651)
in a child work, like we talked about earlier, to challenge that story. Let's go back to when you were that age, when you first felt that. Is that really what was happening then? Were you really that person or is that what you felt was going on at home? mean, parents do take a lot of rap, don't they, for a lot of this. And there is some appropriate stuff where children have been made to feel not enough or put into,
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I've had expectations put on them that are inappropriate, but adult children can also rewrite the narrative. And so I do often go out to bat for parents and say, you know, they were doing the best they could, I'm sure. And some of these things that happened along the way, you may have added to, and you now have this firm belief that this is who you were as a child. But let's go back a bit and have a closer look.
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So definitely causation is a big thing.
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Rachel Morris (18:31.885)
So you're challenging gently but firmly if those two things can coexist, which I think they can. So supportive but with challenge. So you're
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Charlotte Allocca (18:39.847)
and
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Rachel Morris (18:46.071)
Going back and saying, is this true, was this true, but what is your truth now? So you've used another important word, which is you've used reframing earlier on in this session. I think you used it in relation to yourself, Charlotte, but can we just go back to your reframing a little bit as a principle? Because it might be for somebody listening, they think, actually, this will help me.
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Charlotte Allocca (18:48.667)
Yeah.
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Charlotte Allocca (18:54.674)
Yeah.
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Charlotte Allocca (18:58.876)
Yeah.
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No.
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Charlotte Allocca (19:05.883)
Yes. So one thing specifically with imposter phenomenon that I really like is to reframe it as a little bit of humility, curiosity about what is going on and growth, an opportunity for growth.
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So rather than thinking that I am suffering from imposter phenomenon, I'm no good at what I do. To think I'm gonna reframe that as a spectrum with self doubt at one end, which is, so to normalise it, this is normal and disabling crippling imposter phenomenon at the other end is not where we wanna be. So, but a little bit of healthy self doubt.
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is great and is going to keep you on your toes at work and is going to keep you being conscientious and aware. And to allow that to be reframed as curiosity aiming for learning and growth about what you do, what your next steps are. And that somehow opens up this kind of liberating head space of opportunity for growth rather than being stuck.
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in these feelings, these murky feelings that I can't do it.
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I mean, we've all worked with the complete opposite of people suffering with this, which is grandiosity, isn't it? And I know that I would far rather work with someone who had, you know, extensive self-doubt than someone who was grandiose. You you never get clients walking through the door saying, I've got really high self-esteem. I wonder if you can help me. So, but I try and just reframe it as this is fine. This is what makes you reflective, insightful.
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Rachel Morris (20:48.033)
Yes, yes, yes.
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Charlotte Allocca (20:57.141)
Conscientious, hardworking, but we don't want that to tip into over preparation, burnout, exhaustion, limiting your opportunities. So it's being somewhere in the middle.
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Rachel Morris (21:13.805)
I hear a kindness in the way you talk to your clients. And I would hope that as a therapist, you talk and you come to your clients with a kindness in your mind. there is, it strikes me that this inner critical voice can be so brutal for a person. It can be painful and brutal and really kind of destabilizing and demobilizing. I hope that's a word. I think it probably is. But if not, I've made a new one up.
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Charlotte Allocca (21:29.405)
me.
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Rachel Morris (21:43.691)
What you're articulating is a kindness to a person who may be being anything but kind to themselves.
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Charlotte Allocca (21:50.28)
Yes. Absolutely. So teaching them about self compassion, self care, self kindness. What would you say to a friend who brought this to you? What would you say to a friend who was brave enough to open up to you in the pub one night and say, this is what I'm struggling with at work? Would you say you're not good enough? You're just not good enough.
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or would you really boost? I mean, you may not have the skills to explore it, but you would listen and you would support. that's what, so it needs to be kind of brought out of the shadows really. And they can do that internally, challenge all the cognitive distortions and core beliefs and do the causation and emotionally regulate, teach them what to do in the moment when they think I'm gonna melt down.
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all of that, but they have to really back that up with a bit of kindness. Kindness in the room is easy, you know, I can do that so authentically with them, but they have to take that away and treat themselves in the same way that I will treat them and that people who love them will treat them. The difficulty is that people at work almost definitely won't know because masking it is very, very important to them.
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So people who struggle with this hide it very, well, often seem some of the most confident people in your workplace.
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Rachel Morris (23:21.921)
was a pattern that came up when we explored burnout in the first series for sure. I want to come to the workplace. There is just a little bit of the piece that you're saying at the moment. So self-compassion feels to me as a coach that something that people can understand up here, but actually for some people it is a very, very alien concept when you put it into, okay, so I know that being kind to myself is important logically, but actually
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Charlotte Allocca (23:24.925)
Yes.
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Rachel Morris (23:49.614)
What does that even look or feel like? So a person can go and have a massage in being kind to themselves and all they're doing is beating themselves up while they're at the massage table. So self-compassion, if I've got anyone listening or we've got anyone listening thinking, where do I start with that for myself? What would you offer?
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Charlotte Allocca (23:57.297)
Hmm.
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Charlotte Allocca (24:07.313)
Yeah, sure. you're absolutely right, because I completely agree with you. That kind of self-care around, I'll go to yoga or I'll go to a massage, can actually just be creating more time and space in your head to be cruel to yourself. So by self-compassion, I mean really challenging that inner critic. So really hearing the voice. And sometimes you have to write it down because you can be on a ruminative cycle where you don't even really realize you're doing it. You're just running yourself down nonstop.
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Rachel Morris (24:20.587)
Yes, yes.
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Charlotte Allocca (24:36.837)
in your head. So I'll get them to do the two column exercise sometimes. I they have to buy a journal in their first session with a very pretty cover. And in that they can do the two column exercise where they have the first column of all my critical thoughts about myself.
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Rachel Morris (24:45.015)
Tell us about this, the two column. Tell us about the value of journaling.
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Charlotte Allocca (24:58.129)
And then my compassionate challenge. you know, I mean, if we take something that's completely off topic, it would be, you know, I'm not extrovert enough. I'm not extrovert enough for my friends. You know, I'm not fun enough. And then the compassionate voice might be, I have lots and lots of friends and they love me for who I am. I may not just be the loudest in the group, but the harsh voice, if you don't get it down, it's just going to go
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and round. We've always noticed, or you know, not everybody loves a journal. Men always look at me when I say journal and just say no. You know, it's like when I say we're going to do a five minute mindful body scan and they just all look so skeptical, but the women get straight into it. But all those little tools as well. But the compassionate inner voice is just trying to replace.
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the harsh inner critic that you might've had in there for years, know, I'm no good. I mean, some of these stories can be 20, 30 years old and clients have never looked at them. They've never even thought about them. They've never joined the dots.
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Rachel Morris (26:00.398)
I'm
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Rachel Morris (26:06.925)
And it strikes me that actually when they do start joining the dots, then that need for self-compassion, it goes higher and higher and higher because the minute the dots are starting to be joined, can come enlightenment, but it can be quite hard as well because you start to kind of see it everywhere, don't you? it's that voice of mine again. here it is again. It's popping up there again.
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Charlotte Allocca (26:20.659)
Mm.
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But they get better at challenging it and I make them literally walk around their flats and their parks saying I'm enough, I'm good enough, looking in the mirror saying I'm good enough, their makeup on, I'm enough, I'm good enough. And it becomes very liberating and they start to believe it.
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And they start to put down that small child that felt like that or that teenager or that person at university. And they think, okay, I don't need that anymore. That voice was just trying to keep me safe and get me through. Don't need that now, I'm an adult. I know I can do this.
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Rachel Morris (27:00.493)
Charlotte, turning our attention to the workplace in which, the system in which many of us are operating a lot of the time, and we will have listeners that are many people in workplaces themselves, of course, but also people that are line managers, many colleagues. We will also have people who can either lead or shape the culture of an organisation, either from a leadership perspective, from a people organisation perspective.
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Just thinking about them at the moment. let's start. You talked about individuals in your experience being quite good at masking in the workplace. So just let's start with that.
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Charlotte Allocca (27:45.746)
Yeah, sure. So the clients that I have worked with with these feelings are certainly not shrinking violets. are people who with, as I said at the beginning, people with big jobs and a lot of responsibility and they often present very confidently and
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That is what their colleagues are seeing. That is what their managers are seeing. But inside of that, that's not the story. That's not their internal truth. That's not what they've internalized. They haven't internalized success. They've internalized fear and fear of failure. So that's who they are. So in the workplace, doesn't stand up and shout out like maybe somebody suffering from depression might.
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Rachel Morris (28:42.701)
So how do I, if I'm a line manager, where do I come into that? Because many line managers might think, goodness, if somebody on my team was experiencing that, I'd want to be able to support. But if I can't see it, what do I do?
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Charlotte Allocca (28:45.042)
Yeah.
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Charlotte Allocca (28:58.515)
So I think the signs and signals for line managers and employers at senior level would be if they could sense that employees were being evasive perhaps about opportunities, were avoiding things that were within their grasp, were perhaps reassurance seeking, then it may just be signs and signals.
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which in appraisal in five minutes on the quiet can be checked out. Not are you suffering with impulsive phenomenon, but is there anything going on? Is there anything that I can help you with to make you feel more comfortable about doing that presentation? A little bit of validation goes a very long way if you feel somebody is needing that.
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But I think generally in workplaces now, we are much better with EAPs and in-house support, in-house counselling support. We are getting much better at supporting this than say 20, 30 years ago. So there are opportunities for employees to go for help frequently. especially even in public sector roles, there's help there. There's often a reluctance to go for it.
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because they don't want to be unmasked. There's shame in there.
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Rachel Morris (30:31.053)
And how do you navigate shame as a therapist? Because I imagine it's a big one that comes up in the therapy room.
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Charlotte Allocca (30:37.093)
well naming it but naming it very gently.
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because there's shame about the word, isn't there? So shame about, there's shame about shame. So shame is a very difficult topic, but if you, again, normalizing it, normalizing it, unpicking it a bit, tracking it back, what would it feel like if you, how good would it feel if you could, what would the best version of you be doing in five years' time? If this wasn't a problem, how would you like to be feeling at work tomorrow? Just unpicking it and seeing what support is there.
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If there people listening to this who are feeling, I could never go to my employer about this, then get some help elsewhere. Get some therapy. Come on in, the water's lovely.
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Rachel Morris (31:27.457)
You
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And from an employment perspective, you're talking about some structural support things that employers can put in place that you think will help. Is there any other, not even advice, but insight that you have when you think about these? These seem to be employers that do it well.
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Charlotte Allocca (31:47.892)
I don't actually think it's an employer specific thing. think, know, obviously in an environment where staff are having to work, they're in high achieving competitive environments, it's worse for sure. But you could have imposter phenomenon in a pretty non stressful environment. It's a me thing rather than a them thing. And that's why it kind of tends to need slightly more bespoke.
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tailored support around their personal narrative rather than, you know, rather than an across the board, you know, benefits for employees. We now offer, you know, support for anybody struggling with this. I mean, they can offer generalized psychological support within their environment, which I think a lot of employers now do.
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And then people in private can raise this if they feel it's appropriate. But people are always very worried about those schemes. What goes onto my record? What is actually confidential? What can I really trust my employer with? They tend to go elsewhere and try to unpack it somewhere else. but I think, you know, just be from an employer's point of view, just being on the lookout for it. Just being on the lookout for it. If you feel that somebody in your team is struggling,
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Rachel Morris (33:04.941)
Mm.
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Charlotte Allocca (33:09.641)
and you can't work out why. And they're high achieving and highly capable, but they're also hyper focusing, over preparing, over working, doing ridiculously long hours, minimizing their successes. Praise isn't landing, then they may be a good candidate for someone really struggling with this.
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Rachel Morris (33:30.989)
Thank you. Thank you, Charlotte. I don't know if you're going to be able to answer this, so feel free to say you can't. From your professional perspective, through employment schemes where people can access psychological support, is there an agreement from your professional side about anything that gets passed back or not? I would have thought it's an entirely confidential relationship. Yeah.
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Charlotte Allocca (33:52.722)
Entirely confidential, yeah. Everything that my clients say in the room is entirely confidential, unless it were to relate to any kind of safeguarding issue, no, would, nothing would, absolutely nothing, no. Yeah, that's pretty sad.
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Rachel Morris (34:04.823)
Sure. So nothing goes on record. Same as with coaching. Nothing would go on record. Lovely. I hope that's reassuring again, if anybody is listening and thinking that. Charlotte, I've really enjoyed listening to you today and I hear a sensitivity, a kindness, but also a normalizing, know, okay, so you're feeling a bit like this today. How can I help? Or it seems that this is happening. What can we do? There's some beautiful phraseology you've shared with us as well, which I think when people are listening,
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Charlotte Allocca (34:26.801)
Yeah.
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Rachel Morris (34:34.411)
you know, might think, I could say that actually, I could have a go with that. Just before we come to the close, and I want to ask you a final question in a moment, but just before that, you wrote a piece that brought me to you originally about your profession and feelings of being an imposter. And just in case we have therapists or newly qualified psychologists or counselors listening, can you just give us a little bit of an insight into what your perspective for them is?
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Charlotte Allocca (34:36.487)
Well, mm.
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Charlotte Allocca (35:02.885)
Yeah, sure. I think it was because I was so aware that it was the end of that sort of, you know, placement year, graduates everywhere going out into the real world and that it's a very exposing. mean, it's one of those real ironies, isn't it? Clients are disclosing so much to me and exposing so much of themselves. And obviously, I'm a bit of a blank canvas. They don't really know anything about me. But I am exposing what I do.
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to them all the time. And that's also very exposing. I'm there seeing what I do. So I'm very conscious that in our profession, it's just us in a room. I don't have anyone to sort of validate what I just did with, you know, I can't go to a line manager and say, how did that go?
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Rachel Morris (35:52.461)
Was it good?
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Charlotte Allocca (35:53.456)
I walk home thinking, I wish I'd said this and when I said that, I wonder if she heard that or if she heard that. And it's very difficult. So I think the key thing I was getting across in that piece was you've got supervision, you know, you've got, know, and don't treat it as that. Don't look at it. Well, like I've said to you, don't look at it as imposter phenomenon. Look at it as growth that every client you work with will teach you more than you ever learned.
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over your books and you'll be growing at this, you know, for as long as you're practising. So, yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly.
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Rachel Morris (36:31.373)
practitioners at heart.
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Charlotte, thank you and we'll make sure that we add a link into the article as well. So for anyone listening who thinks that they're curious about it, we'll make sure that that's connected to you as well. So my final question, Charlotte, is turning our attention to anybody who may be listening who is thinking, I am feeling some of this right now. So my personal experience is happening right now. What's the one thing that you would say to them from your therapeutic perspective?
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Charlotte Allocca (36:39.143)
Thank you.
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Charlotte Allocca (37:02.835)
Oh, so much to pick from in there, isn't there? But to look at some of that, I think the first thing would be if they were going to try and sort of, do you mean DIY? you know, because obviously the first thing I would say would be, yeah, the first thing I would say would be go find someone to talk to who can help you with this, because it's so, it's so easily workable and treatable.
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Rachel Morris (37:12.437)
Yeah, I'm in the park, I'm listening to this and I think, I relate to it.
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Charlotte Allocca (37:24.369)
If you don't want to do that or can't do that, therapy is a time commitment and a financial commitment, then I think look at some of those core beliefs that you may have about yourself, write them down and then challenge them.
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write down some of the things that you say to yourself, some of the things you've, some of the beliefs you've always held and have a look at what the, so take a little bit of a CBT, take a little bit of a cognitive behavioral approach to it. Challenge some of the behavior around it because you probably won't have the tools to do too much, you know, psychodynamic work, but have a look at some of the behavioral work around it. And.
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Open up. If you don't want to go for therapy or support within your workplace, maybe open up to your partner and to some friends or some, you know, low stakes. I always say low stakes risks with someone that you really trust. Open up to somebody and talk it through.
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Rachel Morris (38:21.485)
so it doesn't have to be lonely by the sound.
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Charlotte Allocca (38:22.609)
It doesn't have to be, you don't have to be on your own with it.
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Rachel Morris (38:25.803)
No, and you can get yourself some good journals, know, nice new stationery as well. There you go. Well, there you go. I hope that's been helpful for anyone listening right now. If you're walking by a stationers, now's the chance to dive in. Charlotte, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today. It's really powerful listening to your perspective and the therapeutic perspective is often one as you know.
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Charlotte Allocca (38:28.669)
And you can play that song with a pretty cover.
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Charlotte Allocca (38:44.114)
mission.
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Rachel Morris (38:51.981)
so behind closed doors that it can feel inaccessible to quite a lot of people. So we're very grateful for you being so open and sharing that with our listeners today. So behalf on me and also behalf on everybody listening, thank you. And remember, if you'd like to learn more about Charlotte and her practice, you can find links and also we'll put that article link in and additional details into the show notes.
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Charlotte Allocca (39:02.643)
Well, thank you for having me. My pleasure.
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Rachel Morris (39:21.101)
And that brings us to the end of today's episode of Work Truths Off the Record. If you've enjoyed it, please subscribe wherever you listen so you don't miss what's coming up next. And if you have a moment, a quick review would really help us to reach more people.
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Rachel Morris (00:02.638)
Hello and welcome to Work Truths Off the Record, the podcast that opens up honest conversations about what it means to be human at work. I'm Rachel Morris, a coach and your guide as we uncover the stories, struggles and triumphs behind the professional mask. In this series, we're focusing on the imposter phenomenon. If you've ever doubted your own success or felt you're just one step away from being found out, this series is for you.
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Expect fresh insights, honest personal stories, and tools from leading experts to help you feel more grounded, confident, and connected in your working life. And today I am delighted to be joined by Charlotte Aloka. Charlotte's an integrative therapist based here in London whose work focuses significantly on people who struggle with self-doubt and low self-esteem, which in my mind means she's perfectly placed.
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to give us insight into what therapists see behind closed doors. So Charlotte, a huge warm welcome. I'm really pleased to be talking to you today.
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Charlotte Allocca (01:08.775)
Thank you very much, Rachel. It's lovely to be here. Thanks for inviting me on.
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Rachel Morris (01:13.014)
You're so very welcome. So, Charlotte, I've talked a little bit about you being a therapist and that these conversations come up in your work, but could you just give our listeners a little bit of insight about your relationship with the topic?
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Charlotte Allocca (01:25.767)
Yeah, of course. So I mean, on a professional level, it comes up a lot in the room. And we'll get into that. On a personal level, I was reflecting on this just before I came on to do this, because until about an hour ago, I didn't think I had impulsive phenomenon. And then I suddenly thought, who am I to have any opinions that are of any interest to anybody about it? But I quickly reframed that as I would encourage my clients to have done and thought.
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No, okay, that's just a little bit of healthy self doubt. So I don't think I suffer from imposter phenomenon on a personal level. On a professional level, my relationship with it is that it either turns up in the room in a very overt sense. A client may say in an intro call, I am struggling with imposter phenomenon. I'm struggling at work.
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or in the room it comes out and I can see it and little things about work come up or about their sense of worth and we unpick it from there.
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Rachel Morris (02:31.726)
Thank you, Charlotte. It's interesting that the words kind of self-doubt have come up already because in some of the conversations across these series, our listeners will be hearing people talk about the healthy purpose of doubt and actually how useful it is for us in some instances. But within the world of imposter feelings and thoughts, the sense that actually that self-doubt
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Charlotte Allocca (02:47.603)
Hmm.
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Rachel Morris (02:56.366)
has no evidence behind it because it's being experienced at times where people have done something again and again and again and have a huge track record behind them but at that point in the doubt is kicking in.
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Charlotte Allocca (03:07.481)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. It's about the disconnect for them between what someone is capable of and what they believe they're capable of, the narrative that they're telling themselves, that sort of internalised voice. It's nothing to do with what they can actually achieve. It's all about the story.
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Rachel Morris (03:29.774)
Interesting, thank you. look forward to digging more deeply into this with you, Charlotte. And I should also just let our listeners know, you and I connected because you'd written a piece about how imposter thoughts and feelings actually surface in your profession. So amongst counsellors and particularly more newly qualified counsellors, if I recall correctly. So if there are any counsellors, any therapists that are listening, I think it will be really, really useful for us to kind of add that bit of insight in as well.
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Charlotte Allocca (03:44.147)
Mmm.
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Mmm.
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Charlotte Allocca (03:58.228)
Thank you, yes, and yes, sorry, no, go on.
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Rachel Morris (04:01.867)
No, you're fine. So, if I were to say the imposter phenomenon, what does it mean to you, Charlotte, through your professional therapeutic lens?
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Charlotte Allocca (04:11.719)
So as I said, I think it's that it's the discord between the two voices. People who are suffering, struggling with impulsive phenomenon are generally some of the most insightful and reflective, capable, conscientious. They're sort of every employer's dream really, but they can't see that because for whatever reason they have been knocked off track.
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by a voice that tells them inside, I'm going to get found out. I'm not enough. I'm not good enough.
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they've possibly always thought that. And something has triggered it now. Maybe it's a promotion or a new opportunity. They've pushed themselves slightly outside of their comfort zone, which may in one person just encourage a bit more productivity and adrenaline-fuelled success. But in somebody already struggling with a slightly anxiety-fuelled feelings of imposter, imposter phenomenon.
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They really struggle. It can be crippling. Really crippling.
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Rachel Morris (05:20.535)
Yes, we're across this series, we're hearing stories of the significant human toll that these feelings and thoughts can take. Significant, yeah, it's quite, and as you say, quite crippling for some people at times. What are the...
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Charlotte Allocca (05:28.604)
Yeah.
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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm very sad because they're turning down and avoiding challenges and opportunities that are well within their grasp because they think this is the day that I will get found out. This is the push that will be the push too far.
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Rachel Morris (05:56.558)
Charlotte, you have quite a unique insight into this human experience because in a confidential profession, your conversations are happening behind closed doors. Your contracts with your client is to bring as much truth and as much openness as they can. And that suggests to me that you will get insight that could be useful for our listeners about the kind of signs that tell you that somebody is really struggling.
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suffering at the moment with a feeling or a thought of being an imposter. What are the telltale signs you see that could be useful for other people to know about?
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Charlotte Allocca (06:26.256)
Yeah.
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Charlotte Allocca (06:30.611)
So it's when somebody comes and they may come with, so as I said, it's either their presenting issue, am actually currently working, so obviously completely anonymised and can't say anything about them, but I'm currently working with two clients, incredibly successful in senior leadership teams in their companies.
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very high positions, couldn't possibly have got there without being extremely good at what they do, both crippled by imposter syndromes. They came with it. So that was very overt. I am struggling with this. With other clients, and so we get into it quite directly, but with other clients.
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It can come in after three or four sessions. They may be coming about something relational. They may be coming about something. They may be coming about a broad spectrum anxiety syndrome. They may be coming with generalized anxiety. And we'll start to pick apart the areas, the triggers, where it's coming up. And you start to hear things like...
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you know, at work, you know, if I don't get that they're constantly reassurance seeking at work, but the reassurance doesn't last less and less time, lands less and less, that they are incapable of internalizing success, but very, very good at internalizing mistakes. They find it very difficult to normalize mistakes, that everybody makes mistakes. They...
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When they have success at work, they can't see that, they just move the goalposts. They just raise the bar. So they're blind to their own achievements and hyper-focusing on mistakes and things that have gone wrong and hyper-vigilant for criticism or any sign that what they're doing isn't in line.
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Rachel Morris (08:34.861)
And just for our listeners, you've used the term hypervigilance. Can you just help people to understand what that is, so what we see or hear?
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Charlotte Allocca (08:40.283)
Yeah, sure. Just really, really scrutinising themselves, really, really getting analytical, getting forensic about how they're being received at work by colleagues, by their line managers.
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Um, and I will force them to come back to something that's gone well and really sit with it and really make them try to internalize it. Get hyper vigilant about that. You know, let's get, let's get a hyper focused on how you felt when that did go, Oh yeah, but anyone could have done that. And, yeah. Well, when they sent that really nice email, they didn't really mean it. And I just got lucky getting this job. I don't really belong here. I'm a complete fraud.
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I mean, I get that a lot. I'm a fraud.
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Rachel Morris (09:28.151)
So if we think about what it sounds like when a client's in a session with you, phrases like, I'm a fraud, or phrases or words like, but it wasn't me, it was my team. Are they the kind of things that you're listening out for?
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Charlotte Allocca (09:40.07)
Yeah, and I reframe that as, because what I hear when they say that, which they may never have said, they may say, I am a fraud. I would probably, in my head, they are saying, I am not enough. And I am not good enough. But it's much more fundamental than I am not good enough. It's I am not enough.
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And it may be that in other areas of their life, things are going fine. They're in good relationships. They have a wide social circle. They have other interests. And that's why it's so separate from low self-esteem, for example, which tends to be much more global. But the imposter phenomenon is so success-focused, and that may have come from...
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Well, it may have come from lots of things in their sort of, so we look at the, I don't know if you want me to get in yet. We may look at the causation of it. So, you know, where did that voice start from? Where was that, where do you first remember thinking, hearing that I am not enough feeling that?
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Rachel Morris (10:36.205)
Please do, please do.
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Charlotte Allocca (10:50.349)
and it might be quite a small child that will kind of take them back, I will take them back. They may have come from a childhood where they were maybe high achievers as children. so that became success, kind of became their identity.
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you know, and it became more and more what was expected and then it becomes more and more to live up to. That is actually quite common. And then those high achieving children often grow up to work in quite high achieving competitive environments and they're doing fine. But if there is a trigger,
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back to that small child that felt, I doing this well enough? Am I working hard enough? Am I going to get good GCSEs? Am I going to get good exam results? Am I going to get 10 out of 10 in my spelling test? Whatever they needed to take home to mum and dad. If that is triggered, then imposter phenomenon can be triggered.
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and that deck of cards can come crashing down and all those achievements can then feel very, very fragile and precarious. But it can also come from people who weren't necessarily high achievers, but who just weren't ever told that they were good enough, who just weren't ever made to feel that they were enough when they were children.
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that didn't walk around thinking, yes, it's important that I do well at school, but even if I don't, my family think I'm amazing. My parents love me unconditionally. If you come from a place where you've never felt enough, it's really hard in a competitive workplace to feel you're pulling it off.
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Rachel Morris (12:34.743)
So there's a lot sitting underneath this feeling of whether it is being a fraud or I may not be enough. As I've been kind of working on this series, I've heard examples of belonging coming out as well. So either, you know, I have done something that meant that I was different to my family or did something different to the expectations of my family, or I find myself in an environment where people are different to me and that for some people that can be quite a significant factor when it comes to.
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Charlotte Allocca (12:36.903)
Yeah.
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Rachel Morris (13:04.363)
Am I, is it right I'm here? Am I gonna get found out that I am a fraud here? Have you ever experienced that in your work?
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Charlotte Allocca (13:06.255)
Anyone?
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Charlotte Allocca (13:11.408)
So just to clarify slightly more about what you mean, do you mean we're in an environment where you might be a bit underrepresented as you grow up?
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Rachel Morris (13:18.625)
may be underrepresented, absolutely. You might be working in an environment that traditionally your social class didn't welcome you into or those types of things.
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Charlotte Allocca (13:25.671)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So I've come across it actually, although I have been very much focusing on the workplace and that is where people come to me really with struggles. Another case that I'm thinking of is somebody who didn't come to me at all for imposter phenomenon, came to me for something very relational. But in the telling of his story and in the working with him,
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It came out around having had these feelings at school, having felt that socially he was in a different place. He'd got there academically, but was socially in a different place, having got a scholarship to somewhere where he didn't feel he fitted at all and that he slightly had to reinvent himself to survive. So that's another experience that if you live through that, you might breeze through that afterwards after you've thought, wow, that was
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tough and gone on for a few years. But then you get into a workplace and there can be a moment of doubt or a moment of anxiety in a situation outside your workplace where you just think, I'm not feeling like the best version of myself just now. And you go to work and the seed is sown. Maybe actually I'm a little bit, maybe I've been promoted beyond my ability. Maybe I can't do this. Maybe I'm actually no good at my job.
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maybe I'm rubbish at my job, maybe I'll say no to that presentation, maybe I'll say no to that promotion, maybe I'll say no to opportunities. But I think there's the sort of wider blogging, which I thought you might be referring to of...
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under representation, you if we don't turn up at work and see people who look like us, you know, if we don't meet ourselves at work, that can be really hard and that can go for everything. It will still go for women for sure. It will still, you know, it will go for whether it's ethnicity or social background, whatever it is, if you don't feel you're in your environment, that's another risk factor.
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Rachel Morris (15:28.429)
Yeah, yeah, certainly. I'd like to just go back to a word that you used before, because you talked about stories. And from a therapeutic, if we put your therapeutic lens on it, stories are quite a significant part of this whole wider picture, aren't they, Charlotte? Can you just talk to our listeners a little bit about stories and the role that stories may play in people's thoughts and feelings of not being enough or being a fraud?
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Charlotte Allocca (15:45.107)
Mmm.
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Charlotte Allocca (15:55.11)
Yeah, sure. Well, I think a lot of that comes from, touched on it with the, you may grow up having been, say you were a high achiever in your family and that becomes your family narrative.
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You know, we always say, say you come from a family of three children, that's three children, three completely different childhoods, six parents, you know, that everybody in that family is having an entirely different experience. You may have been brought up as the high achiever, you may have been brought up as the low achiever, and it may have been almost laughed off at the time. It may almost have been, yes, you know, so and so, she's not academic.
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She's not like so and so, you know, he's the one. And these beliefs get really, really powerfully interjected into us by our parents, primary caregivers, whoever's in charge. And we grow up believing them and they are our stories. And we use things along the way to build up our evidence to back up those stories.
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So therapeutically, there's quite a lot of work to be done to challenge those stories and to unpick them and to look at evidence for and against, know, what, tell me about that. That sounds like that was a coping strategy, being that person that got you through. Is that coping strategy serving you now? Is it helpful in any way or is it holding you back? And maybe it's time to put that coping strategy down.
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do a little bit sometimes of...
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Charlotte Allocca (17:30.651)
in a child work, like we talked about earlier, to challenge that story. Let's go back to when you were that age, when you first felt that. Is that really what was happening then? Were you really that person or is that what you felt was going on at home? mean, parents do take a lot of rap, don't they, for a lot of this. And there is some appropriate stuff where children have been made to feel not enough or put into,
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I've had expectations put on them that are inappropriate, but adult children can also rewrite the narrative. And so I do often go out to bat for parents and say, you know, they were doing the best they could, I'm sure. And some of these things that happened along the way, you may have added to, and you now have this firm belief that this is who you were as a child. But let's go back a bit and have a closer look.
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So definitely causation is a big thing.
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Rachel Morris (18:31.885)
So you're challenging gently but firmly if those two things can coexist, which I think they can. So supportive but with challenge. So you're
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Charlotte Allocca (18:39.847)
and
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Rachel Morris (18:46.071)
Going back and saying, is this true, was this true, but what is your truth now? So you've used another important word, which is you've used reframing earlier on in this session. I think you used it in relation to yourself, Charlotte, but can we just go back to your reframing a little bit as a principle? Because it might be for somebody listening, they think, actually, this will help me.
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Charlotte Allocca (18:48.667)
Yeah.
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Charlotte Allocca (18:54.674)
Yeah.
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Charlotte Allocca (18:58.876)
Yeah.
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No.
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Charlotte Allocca (19:05.883)
Yes. So one thing specifically with imposter phenomenon that I really like is to reframe it as a little bit of humility, curiosity about what is going on and growth, an opportunity for growth.
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So rather than thinking that I am suffering from imposter phenomenon, I'm no good at what I do. To think I'm gonna reframe that as a spectrum with self doubt at one end, which is, so to normalise it, this is normal and disabling crippling imposter phenomenon at the other end is not where we wanna be. So, but a little bit of healthy self doubt.
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is great and is going to keep you on your toes at work and is going to keep you being conscientious and aware. And to allow that to be reframed as curiosity aiming for learning and growth about what you do, what your next steps are. And that somehow opens up this kind of liberating head space of opportunity for growth rather than being stuck.
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in these feelings, these murky feelings that I can't do it.
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I mean, we've all worked with the complete opposite of people suffering with this, which is grandiosity, isn't it? And I know that I would far rather work with someone who had, you know, extensive self-doubt than someone who was grandiose. You you never get clients walking through the door saying, I've got really high self-esteem. I wonder if you can help me. So, but I try and just reframe it as this is fine. This is what makes you reflective, insightful.
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Rachel Morris (20:48.033)
Yes, yes, yes.
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Charlotte Allocca (20:57.141)
Conscientious, hardworking, but we don't want that to tip into over preparation, burnout, exhaustion, limiting your opportunities. So it's being somewhere in the middle.
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Rachel Morris (21:13.805)
I hear a kindness in the way you talk to your clients. And I would hope that as a therapist, you talk and you come to your clients with a kindness in your mind. there is, it strikes me that this inner critical voice can be so brutal for a person. It can be painful and brutal and really kind of destabilizing and demobilizing. I hope that's a word. I think it probably is. But if not, I've made a new one up.
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Charlotte Allocca (21:29.405)
me.
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Rachel Morris (21:43.691)
What you're articulating is a kindness to a person who may be being anything but kind to themselves.
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Charlotte Allocca (21:50.28)
Yes. Absolutely. So teaching them about self compassion, self care, self kindness. What would you say to a friend who brought this to you? What would you say to a friend who was brave enough to open up to you in the pub one night and say, this is what I'm struggling with at work? Would you say you're not good enough? You're just not good enough.
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or would you really boost? I mean, you may not have the skills to explore it, but you would listen and you would support. that's what, so it needs to be kind of brought out of the shadows really. And they can do that internally, challenge all the cognitive distortions and core beliefs and do the causation and emotionally regulate, teach them what to do in the moment when they think I'm gonna melt down.
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all of that, but they have to really back that up with a bit of kindness. Kindness in the room is easy, you know, I can do that so authentically with them, but they have to take that away and treat themselves in the same way that I will treat them and that people who love them will treat them. The difficulty is that people at work almost definitely won't know because masking it is very, very important to them.
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So people who struggle with this hide it very, well, often seem some of the most confident people in your workplace.
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Rachel Morris (23:21.921)
was a pattern that came up when we explored burnout in the first series for sure. I want to come to the workplace. There is just a little bit of the piece that you're saying at the moment. So self-compassion feels to me as a coach that something that people can understand up here, but actually for some people it is a very, very alien concept when you put it into, okay, so I know that being kind to myself is important logically, but actually
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Charlotte Allocca (23:24.925)
Yes.
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Rachel Morris (23:49.614)
What does that even look or feel like? So a person can go and have a massage in being kind to themselves and all they're doing is beating themselves up while they're at the massage table. So self-compassion, if I've got anyone listening or we've got anyone listening thinking, where do I start with that for myself? What would you offer?
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Charlotte Allocca (23:57.297)
Hmm.
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Charlotte Allocca (24:07.313)
Yeah, sure. you're absolutely right, because I completely agree with you. That kind of self-care around, I'll go to yoga or I'll go to a massage, can actually just be creating more time and space in your head to be cruel to yourself. So by self-compassion, I mean really challenging that inner critic. So really hearing the voice. And sometimes you have to write it down because you can be on a ruminative cycle where you don't even really realize you're doing it. You're just running yourself down nonstop.
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Rachel Morris (24:20.587)
Yes, yes.
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Charlotte Allocca (24:36.837)
in your head. So I'll get them to do the two column exercise sometimes. I they have to buy a journal in their first session with a very pretty cover. And in that they can do the two column exercise where they have the first column of all my critical thoughts about myself.
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Rachel Morris (24:45.015)
Tell us about this, the two column. Tell us about the value of journaling.
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Charlotte Allocca (24:58.129)
And then my compassionate challenge. you know, I mean, if we take something that's completely off topic, it would be, you know, I'm not extrovert enough. I'm not extrovert enough for my friends. You know, I'm not fun enough. And then the compassionate voice might be, I have lots and lots of friends and they love me for who I am. I may not just be the loudest in the group, but the harsh voice, if you don't get it down, it's just going to go
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and round. We've always noticed, or you know, not everybody loves a journal. Men always look at me when I say journal and just say no. You know, it's like when I say we're going to do a five minute mindful body scan and they just all look so skeptical, but the women get straight into it. But all those little tools as well. But the compassionate inner voice is just trying to replace.
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the harsh inner critic that you might've had in there for years, know, I'm no good. I mean, some of these stories can be 20, 30 years old and clients have never looked at them. They've never even thought about them. They've never joined the dots.
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Rachel Morris (26:00.398)
I'm
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Rachel Morris (26:06.925)
And it strikes me that actually when they do start joining the dots, then that need for self-compassion, it goes higher and higher and higher because the minute the dots are starting to be joined, can come enlightenment, but it can be quite hard as well because you start to kind of see it everywhere, don't you? it's that voice of mine again. here it is again. It's popping up there again.
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Charlotte Allocca (26:20.659)
Mm.
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But they get better at challenging it and I make them literally walk around their flats and their parks saying I'm enough, I'm good enough, looking in the mirror saying I'm good enough, their makeup on, I'm enough, I'm good enough. And it becomes very liberating and they start to believe it.
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And they start to put down that small child that felt like that or that teenager or that person at university. And they think, okay, I don't need that anymore. That voice was just trying to keep me safe and get me through. Don't need that now, I'm an adult. I know I can do this.
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Rachel Morris (27:00.493)
Charlotte, turning our attention to the workplace in which, the system in which many of us are operating a lot of the time, and we will have listeners that are many people in workplaces themselves, of course, but also people that are line managers, many colleagues. We will also have people who can either lead or shape the culture of an organisation, either from a leadership perspective, from a people organisation perspective.
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Just thinking about them at the moment. let's start. You talked about individuals in your experience being quite good at masking in the workplace. So just let's start with that.
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Charlotte Allocca (27:45.746)
Yeah, sure. So the clients that I have worked with with these feelings are certainly not shrinking violets. are people who with, as I said at the beginning, people with big jobs and a lot of responsibility and they often present very confidently and
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That is what their colleagues are seeing. That is what their managers are seeing. But inside of that, that's not the story. That's not their internal truth. That's not what they've internalized. They haven't internalized success. They've internalized fear and fear of failure. So that's who they are. So in the workplace, doesn't stand up and shout out like maybe somebody suffering from depression might.
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Rachel Morris (28:42.701)
So how do I, if I'm a line manager, where do I come into that? Because many line managers might think, goodness, if somebody on my team was experiencing that, I'd want to be able to support. But if I can't see it, what do I do?
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Charlotte Allocca (28:45.042)
Yeah.
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Charlotte Allocca (28:58.515)
So I think the signs and signals for line managers and employers at senior level would be if they could sense that employees were being evasive perhaps about opportunities, were avoiding things that were within their grasp, were perhaps reassurance seeking, then it may just be signs and signals.
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which in appraisal in five minutes on the quiet can be checked out. Not are you suffering with impulsive phenomenon, but is there anything going on? Is there anything that I can help you with to make you feel more comfortable about doing that presentation? A little bit of validation goes a very long way if you feel somebody is needing that.
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But I think generally in workplaces now, we are much better with EAPs and in-house support, in-house counselling support. We are getting much better at supporting this than say 20, 30 years ago. So there are opportunities for employees to go for help frequently. especially even in public sector roles, there's help there. There's often a reluctance to go for it.
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because they don't want to be unmasked. There's shame in there.
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Rachel Morris (30:31.053)
And how do you navigate shame as a therapist? Because I imagine it's a big one that comes up in the therapy room.
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Charlotte Allocca (30:37.093)
well naming it but naming it very gently.
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because there's shame about the word, isn't there? So shame about, there's shame about shame. So shame is a very difficult topic, but if you, again, normalizing it, normalizing it, unpicking it a bit, tracking it back, what would it feel like if you, how good would it feel if you could, what would the best version of you be doing in five years' time? If this wasn't a problem, how would you like to be feeling at work tomorrow? Just unpicking it and seeing what support is there.
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If there people listening to this who are feeling, I could never go to my employer about this, then get some help elsewhere. Get some therapy. Come on in, the water's lovely.
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Rachel Morris (31:27.457)
You
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And from an employment perspective, you're talking about some structural support things that employers can put in place that you think will help. Is there any other, not even advice, but insight that you have when you think about these? These seem to be employers that do it well.
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Charlotte Allocca (31:47.892)
I don't actually think it's an employer specific thing. think, know, obviously in an environment where staff are having to work, they're in high achieving competitive environments, it's worse for sure. But you could have imposter phenomenon in a pretty non stressful environment. It's a me thing rather than a them thing. And that's why it kind of tends to need slightly more bespoke.
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tailored support around their personal narrative rather than, you know, rather than an across the board, you know, benefits for employees. We now offer, you know, support for anybody struggling with this. I mean, they can offer generalized psychological support within their environment, which I think a lot of employers now do.
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And then people in private can raise this if they feel it's appropriate. But people are always very worried about those schemes. What goes onto my record? What is actually confidential? What can I really trust my employer with? They tend to go elsewhere and try to unpack it somewhere else. but I think, you know, just be from an employer's point of view, just being on the lookout for it. Just being on the lookout for it. If you feel that somebody in your team is struggling,
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Rachel Morris (33:04.941)
Mm.
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Charlotte Allocca (33:09.641)
and you can't work out why. And they're high achieving and highly capable, but they're also hyper focusing, over preparing, over working, doing ridiculously long hours, minimizing their successes. Praise isn't landing, then they may be a good candidate for someone really struggling with this.
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Rachel Morris (33:30.989)
Thank you. Thank you, Charlotte. I don't know if you're going to be able to answer this, so feel free to say you can't. From your professional perspective, through employment schemes where people can access psychological support, is there an agreement from your professional side about anything that gets passed back or not? I would have thought it's an entirely confidential relationship. Yeah.
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Charlotte Allocca (33:52.722)
Entirely confidential, yeah. Everything that my clients say in the room is entirely confidential, unless it were to relate to any kind of safeguarding issue, no, would, nothing would, absolutely nothing, no. Yeah, that's pretty sad.
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Rachel Morris (34:04.823)
Sure. So nothing goes on record. Same as with coaching. Nothing would go on record. Lovely. I hope that's reassuring again, if anybody is listening and thinking that. Charlotte, I've really enjoyed listening to you today and I hear a sensitivity, a kindness, but also a normalizing, know, okay, so you're feeling a bit like this today. How can I help? Or it seems that this is happening. What can we do? There's some beautiful phraseology you've shared with us as well, which I think when people are listening,
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Charlotte Allocca (34:26.801)
Yeah.
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Rachel Morris (34:34.411)
you know, might think, I could say that actually, I could have a go with that. Just before we come to the close, and I want to ask you a final question in a moment, but just before that, you wrote a piece that brought me to you originally about your profession and feelings of being an imposter. And just in case we have therapists or newly qualified psychologists or counselors listening, can you just give us a little bit of an insight into what your perspective for them is?
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Charlotte Allocca (34:36.487)
Well, mm.
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Charlotte Allocca (35:02.885)
Yeah, sure. I think it was because I was so aware that it was the end of that sort of, you know, placement year, graduates everywhere going out into the real world and that it's a very exposing. mean, it's one of those real ironies, isn't it? Clients are disclosing so much to me and exposing so much of themselves. And obviously, I'm a bit of a blank canvas. They don't really know anything about me. But I am exposing what I do.
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to them all the time. And that's also very exposing. I'm there seeing what I do. So I'm very conscious that in our profession, it's just us in a room. I don't have anyone to sort of validate what I just did with, you know, I can't go to a line manager and say, how did that go?
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Rachel Morris (35:52.461)
Was it good?
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Charlotte Allocca (35:53.456)
I walk home thinking, I wish I'd said this and when I said that, I wonder if she heard that or if she heard that. And it's very difficult. So I think the key thing I was getting across in that piece was you've got supervision, you know, you've got, know, and don't treat it as that. Don't look at it. Well, like I've said to you, don't look at it as imposter phenomenon. Look at it as growth that every client you work with will teach you more than you ever learned.
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over your books and you'll be growing at this, you know, for as long as you're practising. So, yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly.
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Rachel Morris (36:31.373)
practitioners at heart.
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Charlotte, thank you and we'll make sure that we add a link into the article as well. So for anyone listening who thinks that they're curious about it, we'll make sure that that's connected to you as well. So my final question, Charlotte, is turning our attention to anybody who may be listening who is thinking, I am feeling some of this right now. So my personal experience is happening right now. What's the one thing that you would say to them from your therapeutic perspective?
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Charlotte Allocca (36:39.143)
Thank you.
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Charlotte Allocca (37:02.835)
Oh, so much to pick from in there, isn't there? But to look at some of that, I think the first thing would be if they were going to try and sort of, do you mean DIY? you know, because obviously the first thing I would say would be, yeah, the first thing I would say would be go find someone to talk to who can help you with this, because it's so, it's so easily workable and treatable.
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Rachel Morris (37:12.437)
Yeah, I'm in the park, I'm listening to this and I think, I relate to it.
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Charlotte Allocca (37:24.369)
If you don't want to do that or can't do that, therapy is a time commitment and a financial commitment, then I think look at some of those core beliefs that you may have about yourself, write them down and then challenge them.
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write down some of the things that you say to yourself, some of the things you've, some of the beliefs you've always held and have a look at what the, so take a little bit of a CBT, take a little bit of a cognitive behavioral approach to it. Challenge some of the behavior around it because you probably won't have the tools to do too much, you know, psychodynamic work, but have a look at some of the behavioral work around it. And.
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Open up. If you don't want to go for therapy or support within your workplace, maybe open up to your partner and to some friends or some, you know, low stakes. I always say low stakes risks with someone that you really trust. Open up to somebody and talk it through.
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Rachel Morris (38:21.485)
so it doesn't have to be lonely by the sound.
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Charlotte Allocca (38:22.609)
It doesn't have to be, you don't have to be on your own with it.
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Rachel Morris (38:25.803)
No, and you can get yourself some good journals, know, nice new stationery as well. There you go. Well, there you go. I hope that's been helpful for anyone listening right now. If you're walking by a stationers, now's the chance to dive in. Charlotte, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today. It's really powerful listening to your perspective and the therapeutic perspective is often one as you know.
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Charlotte Allocca (38:28.669)
And you can play that song with a pretty cover.
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Charlotte Allocca (38:44.114)
mission.
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Rachel Morris (38:51.981)
so behind closed doors that it can feel inaccessible to quite a lot of people. So we're very grateful for you being so open and sharing that with our listeners today. So behalf on me and also behalf on everybody listening, thank you. And remember, if you'd like to learn more about Charlotte and her practice, you can find links and also we'll put that article link in and additional details into the show notes.
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Charlotte Allocca (39:02.643)
Well, thank you for having me. My pleasure.
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Rachel Morris (39:21.101)
And that brings us to the end of today's episode of Work Truths Off the Record. If you've enjoyed it, please subscribe wherever you listen so you don't miss what's coming up next. And if you have a moment, a quick review would really help us to reach more people.
