I’ve come to think that writer’s block often begins with an unresolved decision. When a student has been staring at a blank document for an hour, they may still be unsure what the section is supposed to claim or how much they need to know before starting it.
The conventional advice is mostly about getting words on the page. Freewrite. Write badly on purpose. Set a timer. Remove distractions. All useful, sometimes.
That advice can also treat every block as a failure of will. If the introduction will not move, I often suggest working on the methods or another section with clearer demands. I have started calling this strategic avoidance, although it can certainly become ordinary avoidance if left unattended. The change of task at least gives the writer more information than another hour of staring.
The imposter syndrome version runs on the same logic. “I don’t belong here” is often an incomplete observation. You’re learning the discourse of your field. Everyone in a graduate program is doing that at the same time, with the same uncertainty, the same fear that the others know more.
In workshops, I try to identify the uncertainty more precisely. The writer may be working near the edge of their understanding, learning a genre, or avoiding a decision that would narrow the argument. Each problem needs a different response.
Some difficult sections improve only after the writer abandons the first version of the argument. That does not make the delay pleasant or automatically productive. It does explain why another productivity trick is sometimes beside the point. See Writing is the thinking.