Author, expert and speaker on aphantasia and invisible cognitive differences
Available for keynote speaking, podcast interviews, media comment and expert features.
The UK's leading voice on aphantasia
Sassy Smith is a trainer, author and speaker widely recognised as the UK's leading voice on aphantasia and invisible cognitive differences. She is the founder of Aphantasia Academy Ltd and the creator of Unseen Minds Practitioner®, the UK's first and leading CPD-accredited specialist training of its kind.
Sassy lives with multisensory aphantasia, SDAM, anauralia, anendophasia and alexithymia. Her dual perspective as both a specialist trainer and a person with lived experience of all five differences gives her a distinctive and deeply credible voice on a subject that is increasingly reaching mainstream audiences.
Her work has been featured in the Daily Mail Good Health section, BBC Radio Solent, Wellbeing Magazine, Happiful magazine, Take a Break, and a range of professional and consumer podcasts. She speaks at professional events and conferences, most recently addressing the EMCC UK, the European Mentoring and Coaching Council. Her book, Unseen Minds: A Therapist's Guide to Multisensory Aphantasia and Invisible Cognitive Differences, was published in 2026.
With over 30 years of experience across the public and private sectors, and a reputation for making complex neuroscience accessible and immediately applicable, Sassy is a compelling, warm and authoritative guest.
Speaking topics
Sassy speaks to therapists, coaches, mental health professionals, organisational wellbeing teams, educators and general audiences. Each talk is tailored to the audience and can be adapted for keynote, workshop, panel or media format.
The Therapy Gap: the clients your training didn't prepare you for
An evidence-based exploration of the cognitive differences, aphantasia, SDAM, anauralia, anendophasia and alexithymia, that affect around 1 in 20 therapy clients and remain almost entirely absent from professional training. This talk challenges assumptions about how minds work and offers immediate, practical adaptations any practitioner can use.
CPD events · therapy conferences · training days
Unseen Minds: what it means to live without a mind's eye
A personal and professional exploration of multisensory aphantasia and its psychological impact. Drawing on lived experience and current neuroscience research, this talk explores what it means to navigate a world built for visual thinkers when you have no inner imagery, no autobiographical memory replay and no inner voice.
General audiences · wellbeing events · neurodiversity conferences · media
The Invisible Client: cognitive difference and the future of mental health practice
A forward-looking talk on what inclusive, accessible therapy and coaching looks like when it accounts for the full diversity of human minds. This talk draws on the ADHD parallel, examining how a specialism that was once invisible is now mainstream, and applies that lens to aphantasia and connected differences.
Professional development events · leadership forums · organisational wellbeing
Specialising in cognitive differences: building a practice that reaches further
A practical talk for therapists and coaches working in a crowded market, exploring what it takes to develop a genuine specialism in aphantasia and invisible cognitive differences, the demand that currently goes unmet, and the professional landscape as it stands.
Private practice conferences · business of therapy events · coaching professional bodies
Formats available
- Keynote, 30 to 60 minutes
- Workshop or training day, half or full day
- Panel participation
- Podcast guest, 30 to 90 minutes
- Expert comment and media interview
National and specialist coverage
Why you can't picture your childhood or loved ones' faces
March 2026 · double-page feature
A two-page feature in the Daily Mail's Good Health section exploring what it means to live without a mind's eye. The piece drew on Sassy's personal experience of aphantasia and SDAM, her work training therapists, and the growing body of neuroscience research on invisible cognitive differences.
Read the articleAfter a nervous breakdown at 50, I finally found out why talking therapy couldn't work for me
A first-person account of discovering multisensory aphantasia and the connected differences after years of therapy that could not land, and what that revealed about how talking therapy is designed.
Read the articleAphantasia, mental health and everyday life
Sassy joined Lucy Ambache's Friday show as a studio guest for a one-hour programme, covering her personal discovery, the development of Aphantasia Academy, and what practitioners can do differently for clients with invisible cognitive differences.
Health section feature
A piece in the health section of Take a Break magazine, reaching a broad general readership with accessible coverage of aphantasia and invisible cognitive differences.
My story about insomnia
A two-page feature exploring Sassy's experience of insomnia and the role cognitive differences played in her mental health journey. Originally published in print and now available in full online.
Read the articleAphantasia and cognitive diversity in coaching practice
Sassy addressed the Psychological Coaching SIG of the EMCC UK, the European Mentoring and Coaching Council, on the implications of invisible cognitive differences for coaching relationships and professional development.
Conversations about unseen minds
Why don't all therapeutic approaches suit everyone?
Sassy joined Lucy and Adrienne to talk about what it means to live without mental imagery, why so many people sit in therapy rooms feeling quietly broken, and how understanding aphantasia changes the way we approach mental health support.
ListenThe World of Aphantasia, episode 180
A wide-ranging conversation about what aphantasia is, how Sassy discovered she had it, and what it means for people who have spent years feeling like their mind works differently to everyone else's.
ListenUnseen Landscapes: coaching through aphantasia
Exploring what it means to coach clients who have no mental imagery, and how coaches can adapt their practice to be genuinely inclusive of cognitive differences.
ListenVisualise This, episode 229
Sassy challenges the visualisation-heavy world of personal development and explores what growth, goal-setting and success look like for minds that don't think in pictures.
Listen"She was a natural. Exactly the kind of guest we love to have."BBC Radio Solent
Book Sassy for your podcast, event or publication
If you're looking for an expert guest, speaker or commentator on aphantasia, invisible cognitive differences, or the intersection of neuroscience and mental health practice, Sassy would love to hear from you.
She works across formats, from long-form podcast conversations and keynote presentations to short expert comment for print and online features, and is consistently described as warm, knowledgeable and immediately accessible on what can be a complex topic.
Please include a brief description of your event or publication, your audience, and your ideal format.
Media enquiries
Sassy aims to respond to all media enquiries within 48 hours.
Send an enquiry Read the book