03/10/2026
“Familiarity is not the same as authenticity.”
Sometimes the behaviours that feel most natural are not necessarily the behaviours that best represent who we are.
They may simply be patterns we have repeated for years: avoidance, overcompensation, people-pleasing, emotional withdrawal, excessive control or self-protection.
In our paper, Beyond “Fake It Till You Make It”: The Pendulum-Effect Formulation, Embodied Rehearsal and the Development of the Integrated-Self, we explore a different way of thinking about behavioural change.
The central idea is that we do not always need to feel confident before acting courageously.
Through repeated, values-guided behavioural experiments, new responses can gradually become embodied, familiar and increasingly authentic.
This is not about pretending to be someone else.
It is about practising behaviours that may already reflect important parts of ourselves, but which anxiety, habit or rigid coping patterns have kept out of reach.
Over time, the aim is not to “fake” confidence, assertiveness or connection — but to integrate these capacities into a broader and more flexible sense of self.
Familiarity is not the same as authenticity.
And authenticity itself can sometimes be developed through action.
Paper available here:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/414382894_Beyond_'Fake_It_Till_You_Make_It'_The_Pendulum-_Effect_Formulation_Embodied_Rehearsal_and_the_Development_of_the_Integrated-Self
PDF | The familiar instruction to “fake it till you make it” recognises that action can precede emotional readiness, but its language risks encouraging... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate
