56% of doctoral students report feeling like an imposter.
75% say they worry about failing.
And 63% feel completely overwhelmed.
It’s little wonder there’s a crisis of confidence running through doctoral programmes right now (Byrom et al., 2020; Berry et al., 2021).
And if you’ve been feeling any version of “I’m not good enough for this” or “everyone else seems to know what they’re doing,” you’re not alone. In fact, the data suggests you’re having a very normal reaction to a system that isn’t built to protect your confidence (Sverdlik et al., 2020).
So what’s actually behind this collapse in confidence? And, more importantly, what can you do about it?
Let’s break it down.
Why confidence is collapsing across academia
One of the biggest findings from recent research is that confidence issues aren’t primarily about personal weakness — they’re about context.
Start with loneliness. It turns out to be one of the strongest predictors of mental distress among PhD students, and it directly drives impostor thoughts and self-doubt (Berry et al., 2021). When you spend long stretches working alone, without a clear sense of belonging, your inner critic has a lot of room to run wild.
Then there’s perfectionism. Not the healthy kind — the “nothing I do is ever good enough” kind. This is a major predictor of depression, anxiety, and extreme fear of failure among doctoral researchers (Byrom et al., 2020). And when you combine that with a system where 75% of students constantly worry about failing, it becomes a breeding ground for impostor feelings.
Academic culture intensifies all of this. Continuous evaluation, competitiveness, publication pressure, and unclear expectations push many students into cycles of self-comparison that distort their sense of competence (Nori et al., 2022). It’s not that students suddenly lose confidence — it’s that they’re immersed in environments that steadily erode it.
Supervision plays a role too. When the relationship feels cold, inconsistent, or overly critical, confidence drops sharply. Reduced “communion” with supervisors — things like feeling understood, supported, and respected — predicts worse outcomes across the board (Berry et al., 2021). And here’s a twist: if a student’s self-efficacy is already very low, intensive supervision can sometimes make impostor feelings worse (Petruzziello et al., 2024).
And finally, there’s the matter of identity. Many students describe confidence collapsing in moments where competence is on display — presenting, writing, or trying a new technique. These are hotspots for impostor feelings because they expose what students fear most: being “found out” (Chakraverty, 2020).
When you add in structural inequities — like the fact that women, non-binary students, LGBTQ students, and international students report higher rates of impostor feelings and distress — it becomes clear that this isn’t an individual problem. It’s a systemic one (Milicev et al., 2021; Berry et al., 2021).
What you can do about it
The good news is that confidence can be rebuilt. And the strategies that work are surprisingly small and surprisingly human.
One of the most powerful things you can do is to connect with even a tiny group of peers. An 8-week support group intervention led to dramatic improvements in wellbeing, moving three quarters of at-risk students back into normal ranges (Panayidou & Priest, 2021). You don’t need anything formal to benefit from this. Start with a 10–15 minute chat with one or two other students about how your week is going. Universality — the sense of “oh, it’s not just me” — is an incredibly strong antidote to self-doubt.
Another step is simply naming what’s going on. Students often fear that admitting self-doubt will make them look incompetent, but open conversations with mentors are shown to normalise impostor feelings and reduce their intensity (Chakraverty, 2020). You don’t have to bare your soul — just a short, factual “I’ve been struggling with confidence lately” can shift things. And when the relationship is good, supervisors play a major role in rebuilding confidence through clarity, reassurance, and realistic expectations (Berry et al., 2021).
And finally, add one recurring “confidence anchor” into your schedule. It could be a writing group, a weekly seminar, office hours, or anything that makes you feel connected to the scholarly world. Belongingness is a strong protective factor: students who feel integrated into their academic community experience far lower impostor syndrome and better mental health over time (Sverdlik et al., 2020).
None of these steps will magically erase fear or self-doubt. But they will interrupt the conditions that sustain them. Confidence isn’t something you either have or don’t have — it’s something that grows in the right environments.
If you’ve been feeling the weight of this confidence crisis, I hope this gives you a clearer picture of what’s going on underneath it — and a few places to begin.
References
Bano, S., & O’Shea, C. (2023). Factors contributing to imposter phenomenon in doctoral students: A US-based qualitative study. International Journal of Doctoral Studies.
Berry, C., Niven, J., & Hazell, C. M. (2021). Personal, social and relational predictors of UK postgraduate researcher mental health problems. BJPsych Open.
Byrom, N., Dinu, L. M., Kirkman, A., & Hughes, G. (2020). Predicting stress and mental wellbeing among doctoral researchers. Journal of Mental Health.
Chakraverty, D. (2020). PhD student experiences with the impostor phenomenon in STEM. International Journal of STEM Education.
Milicev, J., McCann, M., Simpson, S., Biello, S., & Gardani, M. (2021). Evaluating mental health and wellbeing of postgraduate researchers: Prevalence and contributing factors. Current Psychology.
Nori, H., & Vanttaja, M. (2022). Too stupid for PhD? Doctoral impostor syndrome among Finnish PhD students. Higher Education.
Panayidou, F., & Priest, B. R. (2021). Enhancing postgraduate researcher wellbeing through support groups. Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education.
Petruzziello, G., Soncini, A., Toscano, F., Puzzo, G., De Sio, S., Giusino, D., & Tomei, G. (2024). “Is it me or…?” A multimethod study to explore the impact of personal and contextual factors on PhD students’ well-being. European Journal of Higher Education.
Sverdlik, A., Hall, N. C., & McAlpine, L. (2020). PhD impostor syndrome: Exploring antecedents, consequences, and implications for doctoral well-being. (Included as a primary study in the Elicit report.)
Wang, Y., & Li, W. (2023). The impostor phenomenon among doctoral students: A scoping review. Frontiers in Psychology.
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