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[[Psychoanalytic ]] [[tradition ]] considers the [[nature ]] of the imposter by referring to the [[work ]] of Karl [[Abraham ]] originally; during the 1950s, to the work of Helene Deutsch; and later to Phyllis Greenacre.

Their work contained descriptions of [[clinical ]] cases as well as a comparison of famous imposters throughout [[history]], like [[James ]] MacPherson. The imposter is someone who pretends to be someone they are not. It is the falsification of [[identity ]] that creates the imposture, the borrowed identity [[being ]] that of someone else or that of an [[imaginary ]] person with a different [[name ]] or a different [[profession]]. The success of the imposture may depend on the complicity of [[others ]] in the lie.

In [[truth ]] none of the descriptions given in the [[literature ]] goes much further than these relatively superficial findings. The attempt to create a composite picture of the imposter has failed because of the inaccuracy of the term itself, which is not [[conceptual]], and the diverse personalities included under this term.

However, several characteristics have been advanced as being specific to the imposter. These include the [[compulsion ]] to enact the [[family ]] romance, disorders in the [[sense ]] of identity (which are paradoxically relieved by the borrowed identity), and a malformed [[superego]]. Considered as a [[form ]] of [[psychopathology]], imposture has been classified among the perversions. Imposters are described as having usurped the [[role ]] of the [[oedipal ]] [[father ]] and as [[identifying ]] with the [[maternal ]] [[phallus ]] at an early age.