Aphantasia is not the sort of thing that you would get a doctor to diagnose. It is different from most other things because there is not a clear objective means by which a doctor could definitively diagnose aphantasia as they don't have insight into your imagery capabilities. fMRI/MRI also would not work as there is not a clear neural marker, only characteristics that one can observe averaged over multiple people. At the moment the best and most common way of establishing aphantasia (and what researchers in the field do) is take the VVIQ https://aphantasia.com/study/vviq/ If you score 1s for everyone question you would have what we call extreme aphantasia (a score of 16 overall on VVIQ). 17-23 moderate aphantasia and 24-32 a mild aphantasia (or dim imagery). It may be in the future clear neurophysiological markers are established that can lead to a more "objective" diagnostic criteria but for now this is the standard way of diagnosing it and one doesn't need a doctor to do it.

This is like needing to be diagnosed with color blindness. You just kind of figure it out.

I had the same thing happen with a friend. She was saying I was jumping on the Aphantasia trend because it was cool and that I could not know until I was diagnosed. TBH, I wouldn't even know what doctor could diagnose Aphantasia without an FMRI which is expensive and hard to justify for something that is not an illness/disability. Anything that is not an FMRI can't be measured and would rely on what you tell the doctor which can't be verified. Unless... a lie detector! As a side note, I don't know when and it what niche of society having Aphantasia became trendy, but I found it hilarious. I was scared as hell for like 5 minutes when I first found out while I realized that I am doing great in my life. When thinking about lies, I try to think about the incentive behind the lie. If there is none, its more likely to be true. I don't know what advantage could come of lying about having Aphantasia, but maybe coming from that angle you could prod your parent's mind to believe you? This depends heavily on historical context and your relationship with your parents so its definitely not bullet-proof. My dad was scared shitless when I told him. He called me the next day to tell me we could train for it and find a cure to which I laughed and told him there is nothing to cure. Glad to know it was a well intentioned comment.

I live in Istanbul, Turkey. About two years ago, I told my friends who graduated from the psychology department that I am aphantasic. They didn’t believe me, insisting that only a psychiatrist could diagnose it. So, I decided to see a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist told me, “If you think you have aphantasia, then you probably do. It’s like people searching online to confirm whether they are male or female—it’s something you inherently know. You’ve reached this age without any issues related to it.” When I mentioned what my psychologist friends had said, the psychiatrist simply replied, “There’s nothing psychiatric about this. It’s just a different way your mind works.” Then, he asked if I had any other questions. When I see statements online like, “It is estimated that a certain number of people have aphantasia,” I realize I’m not included in those statistics. I don’t know who’s counting, but I believe there are many people who don’t even know they have it. Moreover, there may be many aphantasics who aren’t recorded anywhere.

Aphantasia is not the sort of thing that you would get a doctor to diagnose. It is different from most other things because there is not a clear objective means by which a doctor could definitively diagnose aphantasia as they don't have insight into your imagery capabilities. fMRI/MRI also would not work as there is not a clear neural marker, only characteristics that one can observe averaged over multiple people. At the moment the best and most common way of establishing aphantasia (and what researchers in the field do) is take the VVIQ https://aphantasia.com/study/vviq/ If you score 1s for everyone question you would have what we call extreme aphantasia (a score of 16 overall on VVIQ). 17-23 moderate aphantasia and 24-32 a mild aphantasia (or dim imagery). It may be in the future clear neurophysiological markers are established that can lead to a more "objective" diagnostic criteria but for now this is the standard way of diagnosing it and one doesn't need a doctor to do it.

This is like needing to be diagnosed with color blindness. You just kind of figure it out.

I had the same thing happen with a friend. She was saying I was jumping on the Aphantasia trend because it was cool and that I could not know until I was diagnosed. TBH, I wouldn't even know what doctor could diagnose Aphantasia without an FMRI which is expensive and hard to justify for something that is not an illness/disability. Anything that is not an FMRI can't be measured and would rely on what you tell the doctor which can't be verified. Unless... a lie detector! As a side note, I don't know when and it what niche of society having Aphantasia became trendy, but I found it hilarious. I was scared as hell for like 5 minutes when I first found out while I realized that I am doing great in my life. When thinking about lies, I try to think about the incentive behind the lie. If there is none, its more likely to be true. I don't know what advantage could come of lying about having Aphantasia, but maybe coming from that angle you could prod your parent's mind to believe you? This depends heavily on historical context and your relationship with your parents so its definitely not bullet-proof. My dad was scared shitless when I told him. He called me the next day to tell me we could train for it and find a cure to which I laughed and told him there is nothing to cure. Glad to know it was a well intentioned comment.

I live in Istanbul, Turkey. About two years ago, I told my friends who graduated from the psychology department that I am aphantasic. They didn’t believe me, insisting that only a psychiatrist could diagnose it. So, I decided to see a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist told me, “If you think you have aphantasia, then you probably do. It’s like people searching online to confirm whether they are male or female—it’s something you inherently know. You’ve reached this age without any issues related to it.” When I mentioned what my psychologist friends had said, the psychiatrist simply replied, “There’s nothing psychiatric about this. It’s just a different way your mind works.” Then, he asked if I had any other questions. When I see statements online like, “It is estimated that a certain number of people have aphantasia,” I realize I’m not included in those statistics. I don’t know who’s counting, but I believe there are many people who don’t even know they have it. Moreover, there may be many aphantasics who aren’t recorded anywhere.