Thread by @SteB777

I want to start a thread about something much different to usual.

To create awareness of 2 little understood conditions and the huge implications.

Anauralia, the lack of an inner voice, and aphantasia, the inability to visualize with your mind.

1/🧵ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

I have both aphantasia, and anauralia, only learning of the latter term, last week.

It arose out of an ongoing evaluation for PTSD by a clinical psychologist, when I suddenly realized it was mistakenly thought I ruminated, because I said them.

2/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia

I'm actually incapable of rumination, because I have no inner verbalized thoughts at all, and no inner capability of verbalized reasoning.

Until I speak or write, I am not aware of any words at all, connected with my mental processes. It must be very difficult to imagine.
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Believe it or not, it was only after a social media discussion in 2019, that there was any general understanding, that some people had no inner voice, but most did.

4/iflscience.com/people-with-no…

I've never had any ability to internally visualize things, and figured people were just pretending to. Likewise, I imagined when people spoke about their inner voice, that it was some kind of metaphor, not that they actually heard a voice.

5/cbc.ca/news/canada/sa…

Neither of these conditions, are diagnoses or disorders as such. Neither have directly impacted me. My internal intuition and insight, has just been greatly enhanced to make up for it, just like a person born blind, develops other senses more.
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It only became an issue to me, when I developed a severe PTSD type condition 14 years ago. Where I have being led around and round in circles, being misunderstood and misdiagnosed, simply because of the assumption I had an inner voice and could mentally visualize.
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One of the big problems is that the NHS and the NICE guidelines have totally thrown in their lot with cognitive therapy, specifically CBT. Actually I only found out 2 weeks ago, the NHS had no non-cognitive therapy.
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This goes much, much deeper than just therapy, as they have totally bought into the cognitive model for mental health. With the assumption that all mental health problems are caused by the way you think about things.
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Honestly, this has been mental hell for the last 14 years, trying to understand what was going on, when these people demanded to know what my worrying thoughts were, and me trying to get across I didn't have any worrying thoughts, because I had no thoughts.
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I kept trying to tell them that CBT made absolutely no sense at all to me, because I had no verbalized thoughts I was aware of, let alone the ability to modify them, to think differently. The visualization bits were just baffling.
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When this misunderstanding was resolved with the clinical psychologist last week, she gave me this research led by @DrMawtus, which has uncovered that aphants, have a torrid time with the mental health care system being misdiagnosed.

12/research.edgehill.ac.uk/en/publication…

Being seriously damaged by totally inappropriate treatments, especially of the cognitive model, which assume all people can visualize things and explain their inner thoughts (which this research doesn't deal with). There is virtually no awareness of this with professionals.
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Can you imagine a healthcare system, where there was total denial that physical blindness of visual impairment, and all patients without visual sight, were treated as disruptive, belligerent and mentally disordered for saying they were blind?
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It seems the only reason it has been assumed all people have an inner voice and the actual ability to mentally visualize, is because most do. These were not safe assumptions. Nor are they stated assumptions.
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I've been widely read in psychology and cognitive science, for the best part of 40 years. Never have I seen it stated that all people have an inner voice or can visualize. Nothing to contradict my understanding that these capabilities were any more than metaphors.
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So why were these assumptions made? It seems little more, than assumption. It seems incredible that is only in the last few years, by a few researchers, but first the public via social media, that this was realized.

How?
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As I only discovered all this within the last week, I am still left reeling. As I say, I had little reason to believe other people had an actual inner voice, and could actually visualize things, and these were not merely metaphors for something else.
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It's not that there is nothing going on in my head. Quite the opposite, but it is all intuition and insight, no visualization, no word based thinking. Essentially, I am internally, blind and deaf. But with much better abilities to navigate my way around, none visually.
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I see things intuitively, I understand words intuitively, without hearing them.

It is the reason for my big picture view of every thing like the climate and ecological crisis, and why I see the whole crisis as one thing, not bits of it. I am not encumbered by language logic.
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You see, verbal reasoning, based on language logic, is entirely different than the real world. It requires everything to be put into categories, the creation of false dichotomies. It's the basis of prejudices people have. To make verbal language work.
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I honestly, have never had any prejudices. Whether someone is male, female, heterosexual, gay, bisexual, white, black, yellow, their ethnicity, made no difference at all to me, because I didn't categorize things at all, let alone like this.
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I'm still trying to process all of this. But I do question whether this whole thing about verbal reasoning, is actually innate to humans, or might be a cultural development, as indigenous people seem to see the world differently.
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I cite Carl Jung's encounter with Mountain Lake a Hopi elder, who told him the Hopi (probably most Native Americans) thought that the whites were mad, because they believed they thought with their heads.

24/jungpage.org/learn/articles…

After reading the anthropological literature for years, I am fully aware this was widespread with indigenous peoples, that they were totally baffled by how European colonizers who took over their countries thought.
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This is what has long led me to conclude, that this highly verbalized thinking, is not an innate human trait, but that people were conditioned into thinking like this, when powerful people first started to take over our societies, within the last 6,000 years.
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I won't lay out my central thesis for this, but will simply say, it is essential in the rule by powerful people that all the people who they rule over, accept their ideas, that they are king, that they own the land etc, and have no other views.
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I think this highly verbalized way of thinking, has also facilitated people becoming detached from the natural world that sustains them. No people who think like this, have ever had the close relationship with Mother Earth, that indigenous peoples had.
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I expect indigenous peoples probably may have the ability to visualize and hear sounds and words in their minds. Just that they never considered words and ideas composed of them, to mean much. That they largely intuited things, and felt them.
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However, this is all mere speculation, when only in the last few years have a handful of researchers established the existence of aphantasia and anauralia, and the vast majority of the academic world i.e. psychology, is totally unaware of it.
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This is why I am writing this thread to raise awareness of this blind spot in our society's awareness of this. Especially as it has profound implications as to mental health treatment and support. Very particularly as regards the influence of the cognitive model.
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I would be particularly interested to hear from psychologists, mental health workers, doctors, medical people, and for them to understand that not all people have an inner voice and can visualize things internally.
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My personal insight and experience, is not the issue here, only as it gives me insight into it. This is about creating a general awareness of it.

This also ask huge questions about our cultural prejudice, in assuming language logic and verbal reasoning, is essential.
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I'm living proof, that you can have a very good grasp of the world, the inherent problems in it, without any inner ability to reason in words.

As I say, until I speak or write, I am not aware of words, and language logic. Although I can speak and write very ably.
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@DanCady @DrMawtus @Jannerbirder @theAliceRoberts @GeorgeMonbiot

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