This morning on BBC Breakfast TV, Prof Adam Zeman, University of Exeter discussed what he is calling Aphantasia, the inability of some people to see mental images. He says Aphantasia is not a disorder, disability or a condition, it is just a way of being and often these same people may even have good dreams. See article and videos. Within minutes of the programme people were blogging about it and almost saying “yipee, a new condition that lots of us have”. Labels like this get banded around and medicalised far too often as proved by the current work on Functional Medicine. (see Dr Jeffrey Bland’s work) I find this deeply depressing when it is a skill everyone is born with, or how else would you recognise your mother – we have this skill at 6 weeks old!! Some people don’t develop it much, for a variety of reasons, but everyone has it.
We have been working in this field for 10 years, helping people to develop strong mental images and how to use them for all aspects of learning including literacy, numeracy, improving handwriting, improving concentration, dealing with out of control mental images, etc. Understanding mental imagery is vital for all aspects of #learning differences, especially Dyslexia, Dyscalculia, Dysgraphia, ADHD, Aspergers and Autism.
Empowering Learning is happy to work with others in this field including Adam Zeman, to share our experiences.
You can take his test here bbc.co.uk/news/health
Olivehickmott 