I was nervous to start just as I would be anxious to start any new job, and I had to process my sadness to leave friends and go to the middle of nowhere. I had pretty high “evaluation-based” anxiety at the time and was worried about being constantly evaluated on internship. Then I had a terrible experience with supervision beyond anything I’d experienced before (my personality was picked at and put under a microscope in the name of “holistic” supervision, constant scrutiny of my behavior and practice, sups listening to 2-3 of my full tapes per week as standard practice there)....but I passed. My clinical skills were fine. My fellow interns and partner (long distance at this point) were instrumental in making the process easier, and I felt supported by them (my fellow interns went through the same grueling “microscope” experience and we’d use A LOT of gallows humor to get through it, like joking that we should just cry in supervision and they’d like us more, which was only a half joke, because it ended up being true when it happened).
This isn’t to scare you, because I’m pretty sure my experience fell outside of the “normal” range of internship experiences, but to say that I passed even though I had a terrible time, and anecdotally, in the experiences of several people in my program and friends, etc....I only know of ONE person (out of probably an n of 25 or so) who didn’t pass, which are very low odds, and his extreme lack of clinical skill was obvious to everyone.
Suffice it say we all have some level of imposter syndrome early on and even after getting our degree to some extent, which is normal. Most of us have some level of this fear that we’ll be “found out” as frauds or that we don’t practice as well as everyone else. On internship, in group supervision, I got to see firsthand via tapes/video playback that my peers and I were relatively at the same level practice-wise which was really reassuring to see.
With that said:
—-Have supports in place (get to know your fellow interns if you can, stay in touch with friends, set up therapy, etc.).
—Remind yourself that this is just one year of your life and you’ll most likely pass, because the vast majority do. That’s the reality. A little cognitive reassurance/challenging of the imposter line of thinking helps. It also helped me to know my fellow interns and I were all going to be “new” together in the internship process.
I can’t speak to the particulars of your challenges, but hope that helps—even tough and grueling internship experiences don’t usually lead to failure! And it’s just one year that goes by quickly, then you get to move on with your life. Maintaining that perspective can help, even in difficult moments.
