Aphantasia Academy

Aphantasia Academy The UK's leading training provider for invisible cognitive differences.

We help therapists, coaches & counsellors work effectively with clients who have aphantasia, SDAM, anendophasia & alexithymia.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "I felt seen."This is the most powerful feedback a writer can receive. To every person with aphantasia, SDAM, or a...
25/05/2026

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "I felt seen."

This is the most powerful feedback a writer can receive. To every person with aphantasia, SDAM, or any other invisible cognitive difference – I see you. Your experience is real, and you are not alone.

This book was written to build a bridge of understanding. Thank you for letting me know it reached you.

Unseen Minds is available in paperback or ebook on Amazon now.

20/05/2026

Starting counselling can feel daunting, especially if you’ve tried it before and felt like it just didn’t fit.

Neurodiversity counselling can feel a little different. You might laugh more than you expected, feel able to talk about things you never thought you’d say out loud, or finally feel able to relax enough to be yourself. Building trust and connection always comes first.

There’s no pressure to get things “right”. It’s simply a space to explore who you are, how you experience the world, and what you need.

If you’d like to learn more, visit meadowbrookcounselling.co.uk or send me a message to arrange an initial session or a free phone call.

Today is the closing date for the government's SEND consultation, Every Child Achieving and Thriving.I submitted a forma...
18/05/2026

Today is the closing date for the government's SEND consultation, Every Child Achieving and Thriving.

I submitted a formal response and I also wrote to the Secretary of State for Education, Bridget Phillipson, directly.

Why? Because buried in the conversation about SEND reform is something that almost nobody is talking about: children with aphantasia, SDAM, anendophasia, and anauralia are not classified as having special educational needs, despite the fact that their cognitive differences have direct and significant implications for how they learn, how they process information, and how they experience school.

They are not seen, not in the data, not in the policy and not in the classroom.

A child who can't visualise will struggle with every teacher who uses mental imagery to explain an idea. A child with no inner voice will find silent reading comprehension tasks functionally different to every neurotypical peer. A child with SDAM will not be able to access memories in the way exam recall demands.

None of this appears in current SEND frameworks. None of it is in initial teacher training and because these differences are invisible and the children themselves rarely have language for what is different about them, it goes unnoticed.

I will share the outcome of the consultation when it is published. In the meantime, if you work in education and any of this resonates, I would love to hear from you in the comments.

If you're interested in finding out how we can support your school to understand what this means for your students, drop me a line and let's talk.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "Should be mandatory reading for therapists."Wow. Just... wow. Seeing this feedback is incredibly affirming. My ho...
18/05/2026

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "Should be mandatory reading for therapists."

Wow. Just... wow. Seeing this feedback is incredibly affirming. My hope is that understanding cognitive diversity becomes a standard, foundational part of every therapist's training.

Until then, I'm honoured that so many of you consider UNSEEN MINDS to be an essential part of your professional library.

If you're ready to start understanding your unseen clients, grab your copy from Amazon today.

It is the last day of Mental Health Awareness Week and I want to end it with the most direct thing I can say.1.1 million...
17/05/2026

It is the last day of Mental Health Awareness Week and I want to end it with the most direct thing I can say.

1.1 million people started NHS Talking Therapies last year and didn't finish. That number has not improved in a decade. More money, more referrals, more therapists. The same dropout rate.

Some of that is systemic, some of it is funding, some of it is workforce capacity, some of it is fit and readiness, and some of it, a measurable, addressable proportion, is a training gap that can be closed right now, by individual practitioners making a choice to learn what their qualification didn't cover.

That is the action that is available to every therapist reading this. Not a campaign, not waiting for the system to change but a course, a book or time spent understanding why some of your clients cannot do what you are asking them to do.

The tools exist. They are ready, and the clients who need them are already sitting in your therapy rooms.

If this week has moved you to take one action for your practice, I would be genuinely honoured if it involved my work. Comment TRAINING for the full programme, FOUNDATIONS for the first step, or MASTERCLASS if you want to start for free.

What action will you take?

Can you help me?Mental Health Awareness Week exists because awareness without action changes nothing. I've been saying a...
15/05/2026

Can you help me?
Mental Health Awareness Week exists because awareness without action changes nothing.
I've been saying a version of that for years, but I've been saying it in rooms that are already primed to listen.

The conversation about aphantasia, invisible cognitive differences, and the gap in therapeutic training needs to reach bigger rooms and I am looking for opportunities to take it there.

If you organise events, conferences, or training days for mental health professionals, coaches, educators, or corporate wellbeing teams, I would love to talk to you.

If you host a podcast that reaches therapists, neurodivergent communities, or people interested in how the mind works, I would love to be a guest.

If you work in media and need an expert voice on neurodiversity and mental health, I am available.

I've spoken to the EMCC UK. I've been featured in the Daily Mail Good Health section and on BBC Radio Solent. I was a guest this month on the podcast It's Not That Deep. I’m featured in this month’s Wellbeing Magazine and I have a book that reached number one on Amazon.

I have a story that I believe belongs in front of a much wider audience.

If that's you, please DM me or comment below. I will get back to you personally.

How many of the clients you have seen for depression were actually experiencing something else?The research gives us a s...
14/05/2026

How many of the clients you have seen for depression were actually experiencing something else?

The research gives us a specific, evidenced answer for at least one population. People with aphantasia who develop PTSD present differently to neurotypical clients. They have less intrusive imagery, which is one of the defining diagnostic features of PTSD. Without that symptom, GPs and practitioners are more likely to refer them for depression treatment. This means that the trauma goes unrecognised and the client gets the wrong treatment, often for years.

It’s important to note that this is not a failure of clinical skill. It’s a training gap and one that is entirely, practically, immediately fixable.

If you’re keen to find out more but not sure if full training is right for you, your first step is to take our free CBT Masterclass. It takes less than 30 minutes, and it will change how you hear certain presentations in your sessions.

It covers what aphantasia is, how it presents clinically, and the first adaptations any therapist can make immediately, regardless of their modality.

Save this post and comment MASTERCLASS and I'll send you the link.

Mental Health Awareness Week feels like the right moment to say this.Writing Unseen Minds: A Therapist's Guide to Multis...
13/05/2026

Mental Health Awareness Week feels like the right moment to say this.

Writing Unseen Minds: A Therapist's Guide to Multisensory Aphantasia and Invisible Cognitive Differences, didn't come from a place of professional curiosity. It came from one of total collapse when I had a nervous breakdown. The kind that stops everything. The kind that takes months to come back from and forces you to look, clearly and without flinching, at every assumption you've made about your own mind and your own life.

What I found in the aftermath was that although I already knew that my mind had always worked differently. My inner world is entirely different to what many professionals always assumed was universal.

I can’t visualise, I don’t hear sounds in my mind, and I can’t replay memories as felt experience. On top of that, I genuinely don’t know, moment to moment, what I am feeling.

Although therapy I went to during that time was well-intentioned, clinically appropriate, and offered by qualified professionals, it was built on assumptions my brain couldn't meet.

Therapists couldn’t meet me where I was and I didn’t have the language or the tools to help them understand how to do that. Like many people who are the same as me, I simply gave up trying, masked where I could, gave the answer I thought they wanted to hear and, eventually, just left.

I don't tell this story to be dramatic. I tell it because I know there are people in mental health crises right now having that exact experience.

Writing Unseen Minds and training therapists to support people like me is my way of helping to ensure that those people do get to find a professional who can help them.

If this resonates, please share it. There are people in your network who need to read this.

If you want to know more about my training, please feel free to send me a DM.

According to research, nearly a third of people with aphantasia are experiencing clinically significant levels of distre...
12/05/2026

According to research, nearly a third of people with aphantasia are experiencing clinically significant levels of distress right now. That is not a small number.

A study published in the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology found that 34.7% of people with aphantasia report distress at clinically relevant levels, with anxiety and depression directly linked to poor autobiographical memory and difficulties with emotional processing.

A separate study found that people with aphantasia who develop PTSD are more likely to be referred for depression treatment, because the absence of intrusive imagery removes a key diagnostic feature. The right treatment gets delayed. Sometimes by years.

These are not marginal findings and they describe a population sitting in therapy rooms right now, often being treated for the wrong thing, often dropping out before the work is done.

I wrote Unseen Minds: A Therapist's Guide to Multisensory Aphantasia and Invisible Cognitive Differences because this research existed but the clinical response to it didn't. The book became a number one bestseller in Educational Counselling on Amazon. Every review is five stars.

If you work in mental health and you haven't read it yet, this Mental Health Awareness Week is the week to do so. It's available on Amazon whereever you are in the world.

NHS Talking Therapies doesn't work.Now that I have your attention, that was a deliberately sweeping statement, and I wan...
11/05/2026

NHS Talking Therapies doesn't work.

Now that I have your attention, that was a deliberately sweeping statement, and I want to unpack it honestly.

The truth is more nuanced. In 2023-24, 1.82 million people were referred to NHS Talking Therapies. Only 37% completed treatment. That dropout rate has barely moved in a decade, despite more funding, more therapists, and more referrals than ever before.

So it isn't that NHS Talking Therapies doesn't work. It's that for a very significant number of people, it stops before it has the chance to.

I have a credible, evidence-based explanation for at least part of that number.

Approximately 1 in 20 people has a cognitive difference that makes some of the most common therapeutic techniques partially or entirely inaccessible. Aphantasia, SDAM, alexithymia, anendophasia, anauralia. These are not psychological blocks or resistance, they are neurological realities that the standard therapeutic toolkit was never designed to accommodate.

For example, visualisation techniques don't work for someone with aphantasia and thought capture doesn't work for someone with anendophasia.

Mental Health Awareness Week asks us to take action and for me, the most urgent action available is also the most overlooked: train the people delivering therapy to understand the minds sitting in front of them.

If you're a training decision maker in the NHS, or you know someone who is, drop me a DM if you'd like to talk about how I can support your team so that they don't miss the people who would otherwise drop out.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "A great read."Professional development doesn't have to be dry! I believe complex topics can and should be explore...
11/05/2026

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "A great read."

Professional development doesn't have to be dry! I believe complex topics can and should be explored in a way that is engaging, clear, and enjoyable.

Whether you're a therapist, a coach, or simply curious about the human mind, I'm thrilled to hear you're finding UNSEEN MINDS a great read.

Find out for yourself – grab your copy from Amazon today

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