Aphantasia is not a mental disorder, but discovering you have it can be a psychological stressor for some. These resources explore the link between aphantasia and mental health.
Silvanto · Cortex
A commentary argues that whether to treat aphantasia depends on subtype. Imagery lost after trauma or stress is the clearest candidate, with care aimed at underlying problems; lifelong absent imagery without impairment is variation, not pathology.
Sabel and colleagues · Psychological Reports
Researchers compared hoarding symptoms in 58 people with aphantasia and 23 with unusually vivid imagery against matched typical imagers, allowing for age and depression. People with aphantasia reported no more hoarding symptoms than their matches, though they leaned more on objects as memory aids. People with very vivid imagery reported fewer hoarding symptoms and were less likely to live in cluttered homes. From this comparison of existing groups, the authors suggest that vivid imagery may protect against hoarding.
Kvamme and colleagues · Heliyon
In 591 young adults, more vivid imagery went with an inward-focused style: attention to body signals, mindfulness, and openness. In statistical models, imagery related to mental health only through this style, partly through lower alexithymia.
Pepin and colleagues · Consciousness and Cognition
Involuntary mental imagery is more frequent and vivid than hallucinations, though both share similar phenomenological traits. This suggests these inner experiences exist on a continuum rather than being entirely distinct phenomena.
Scholz and Scholz · International Mad Studies Journal
Researchers found that biomedical and cognitive studies often frame aphantasia as a disorder or deficit, ignoring the lived experiences of aphantasics. This highlights the need for more inclusive research that avoids pathologizing neurodiversity.
Arntz · Behaviour Research and Therapy
Researchers updated the Imagery Rescripting protocol to focus on therapist-led intervention at the memory's most distressing "hotspot." This refinement improves emotional processing and offers non-visual alternatives for those who cannot imagine.
Bartolomeo · Neuropsychologia
In a short conceptual paper, the author proposes sorting aphantasia into at least three forms: neurological, psychogenic and congenital. He offers it as an initial taxonomy for research that has reached contradictory conclusions.
Koenig-Robert, Keogh and Pearson · Cortex
Some people with aphantasia report gaining visual imagery after using psychedelics, possibly due to increased neural plasticity and connectivity. This sudden onset of imagery could increase the risk of intrusive thoughts and other mental health challenges.
Dance, Meeten and Simner · Behaviour Research and Therapy
Aphantasics catastrophise less and feel less threatened by worries despite reporting similar overall anxiety levels as controls. This suggests that while mental imagery is not required for worry, it may amplify its perceived severity.
Monzel and colleagues · Psychophysiology
People with aphantasia achieved successful fear extinction through propositional thought despite lacking mental imagery. This suggests that imaginal exposure therapy may be effective for aphantasic individuals by relying on non-visual cognitive processes.
Mawtus and colleagues · Collabra: Psychology
Among people reporting a mental health condition, fewer with aphantasia than imagers reported intrusive sensory symptoms (31% vs 74%), and they found visual imagery in therapy less helpful. The authors urge adapting techniques to the person.
Best and colleagues · Cognitive and Behavioral Practice
This case report describes one man with PTSD after an assault who had 10 sessions of trauma-focused cognitive therapy, with the imagined revisiting of the trauma done inside a low-cost virtual copy of the real site, built from phone photos in two days. His PTSD symptom score fell from 64 to 19 and he no longer met criteria for PTSD; he found the virtual scene realistic and said it prepared him to visit the real place. The authors note that a single case cannot show what virtual reality added. The paper did not measure his imagery or mention aphantasia.
Ale and Burns
People with aphantasia had overall PTSD scores similar to others but reported more complex PTSD symptoms, such as a negative self-view and relationship problems. This suggests they may need more support after trauma than is currently considered.
Monzel and colleagues · Psychophysiology
This is the published plan for a study, accepted before data collection, so it reports no results. It set out to test whether people need to picture a feared object for their fear to fade while they imagine it, comparing 30 people with aphantasia, 30 typical imagers with eyes closed and 30 typical imagers staring at a bright screen to dampen their imagery. Fear was to be measured through skin responses after people learned to link one of two pictures with an electric shock. A separate 2025 paper reported the results: the fear faded in all three groups.
Wagner and Monzel · Brain and Behavior
Sixteen people with schizophrenia and 44 people without it rated their visual imagery and did a binocular rivalry test, in which a pattern someone has just imagined is more likely to dominate what they then see. The groups did not differ on either measure, although the people with schizophrenia reported far more hallucination-like experiences. Among the people with schizophrenia, more vivid self-rated imagery went with more religious-themed hallucinations. The sample was small, all patients were on medication, and the rivalry test was not very reliable.
Keogh, Wicken and Pearson
People with aphantasia reported fewer intrusive memories after a distressing film, and theirs were mostly verbal rather than visual. The authors suggest visual imagery is tied to how often trauma memories intrude, which may matter for PTSD.
Cavedon-Taylor · Frontiers in Psychology
Aphantasia may primarily involve a lack of voluntary imagery while leaving involuntary imagery intact. This distinction suggests that aphantasics might still be susceptible to psychological disorders driven by intrusive, non-voluntary mental images.
Wicken, Keogh and Pearson · Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
People with aphantasia showed no rise in skin conductance while reading frightening stories, yet reacted like others to frightening photos. This suggests visual imagery amplifies the emotional impact of thoughts.
Blackwell · International Journal of Cognitive Therapy
This review looks at mental imagery in cognitive behavioral therapy research and practice: as a research tool, in everyday memory and planning, in the distressing images found across mental health problems, and in treatments such as imaginal exposure and imagery rescripting. It argues that clinicians and researchers should keep imagery in mind and ask about it, while noting that many patients and therapists experience little imagery and do not find it a useful tool in therapy. It mentions aphantasia only briefly, as one way to learn what imagery does by studying people who lack it.
Holmes and colleagues · Behaviour Research and Therapy
Researchers propose that mental imagery acts as an emotional amplifier in bipolar disorder, fueling mood volatility and anxiety. This suggests targeting imagery could improve cognitive behavioral treatments for the disorder.