Aphantasia and Psychoanalysis: A Conversation with Jamieson Webster

In a wide-ranging interview published in CULTURED magazine, psychoanalyst Jamieson Webster and writer Larissa MacFarquhar explore the implications of aphantasia—the inability to form mental images—for psychoanalysis, trauma, and selfhood. Webster, who identifies as aphantasic, discusses how her spatial rather than visual memory shapes her clinical practice and personal history. MacFarquhar, whose 2025 New Yorker article brought aphantasia to wide attention, recounts her first encounter with the phenomenon through philosopher Derek Parfit in 2010. The conversation touches on Freud's view of images as constructed from words, the contrast with Jung's hyperphantasia, and the potential protective role of aphantasia against PTSD. They also consider how modern technology—iPhones and photographs—serves as a prosthetic for visual memory. The piece includes references to artist Precious Okoyomon, neurologist Adam Zeman, and researcher Bérengère Digard, and links to further reading on maladaptive daydreaming and Lacanian repression.