Constructing the Impostor and Navigating Identity: A Critical Discursive Exploration of the Impostor Phenomenon and Nursing Doctoral Candidates

Impostor phenomenon (IP) is widely recognised among doctoral candidates but remains insufficiently understood, particularly within nursing academia. It is commonly framed as an individual deficit, overlooking the broader social and linguistically mediated experience that shapes scholarly identity. This discursive exploration draws on Fairclough's Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to examine micro, meso and macro social orders across diverse textual sources and reflexive accounts, exploring how language and institutional norms position nursing doctoral candidates as impostors. Findings reveal tensions between professional, social and ideological expectations and the formation of a doctoral nurse identity, where dominant discourses individualise systemic constraints, reproduce hierarchies and marginalise nursing expertise through gendered, caring and knowledge-ownership narratives. Doctoral preparation can disrupt these dynamics by fostering visibility, authority and knowledge production, yet limited support and persistent hierarchies intensify impostor subjectivities. Shifting from deficit framings to critical discourse perspectives enables supervisors, institutions and candidates to cultivate relational, reflective and inclusive practices that mitigate impostor experiences and strengthen nurse-academic identity. Doctoral education thus becomes a vehicle for structural transformation, advancing nursing's research leadership, policy influence and patient care outcomes.