The executive who never misses a deadline. The surgeon who stays composed through a crisis. The trial lawyer who can recite case law without a tremor in her voice. From the outside, these are portraits of mastery. From the inside, for some, they are survival strategies built on top of unresolved trauma. Clinicians increasingly use the term 'high-functioning PTSD' to describe people who meet criteria for significant trauma symptoms while still holding down demanding careers,

One of the more counterintuitive findings in workplace psychology is that imposter syndrome often gets worse, not better, with seniority. Studies suggest that up to 70% of professionals experience imposter phenomenon at some point in their careers, and it is especially prevalent among high performers, senior leaders, and entrepreneurs — the very people whose accomplishments would seem to make self-doubt least justified (NCBI/StatPearls, NIH; UCLA Health, 2023). Imposter synd