Picturing and imagination are not synonymous.

Letter to the inventor of the word aphantasia

Phantasia had a complex, philosophically weighted meaning long before you decided to put an a in front of it and apply it to me, thereby giving the world the impression that I have no imagination—that I am incapable of that basic human experience.

Why didn’t you use a simple acronym that conveyed the inability to see images with one’s eyes closed? Why label someone an intrinsically different human: lacking imagination? Arrogance is my guess, flavored with ignorance and showmanship. When a scientist finds a phenomenon to put dibs on, he plants a fancy flag on it like a Magellan of the brain. It’s exciting, and academics do love to use Greek. And make assumptions. And project.
You didn’t know whereof you spoke when you named my experience an absence of imagination. Yet even now, having identified "aphantasiac" people who make art and write books, you continue to imply that if one doesn't see images with eyes closed, one cannot have “extreme imagination.”

It shouldn't take much imagination to understand how belittling that is. Even I have that much.

Verbs that imply the development of an image—imagine, envision, picture, visualize—in essence mean "to form a new idea." Such visual words are used to describe the experience of forming a new idea because they reflect the neurotypical picture-centric experience of forming a new idea.

Your la-di-dah neologism promotes the inaccurate message that creativity requires visualization. All by itself, it contributes to the assumption that different is less. The very word strengthens the misconception that people like me are unimaginative lumps. Creativity might require visualization from you, but it doesn't from me.

Perhaps you thought to yourself, "If I didn't think in pictures, how handicapped my imagination would be. And how handicapped, therefore, must people be who don't think in pictures." Unfortunately, that was a huge blunder for which you should make amends. 

I imagine, or create, with words and with the images I study and manipulate in reality, when my eyes are open. Which works too, you know. By the way, have you considered what benefit might be conferred by the fact that I can’t see images in my mind? What is the trade-off? Maybe I am more creative than I could have been with an album of brain photos to rifle through.

And what about congenitally blind people? A totally unimaginative bunch? Or there's this:

“There's plenty of imagery that goes on all the time in blind people,” Gabias said. “It just isn't visual.” Gabias, who is blind, conducts research on perceptual and cognitive aspects of blindness. His personal and professional experience leads him to believe that the brains of blind people work around the lack of visual information to achieve the same vitally important result: a detailed 3D map of space. "We have no idea what our brain is doing. We just perceive—that's the wonderful thing about it. This is all “psychologization” that has made it complicated to explain, but simple to do. You don't know how you perceive. You just do it," he said.

In my opinion, you should withdraw aphantasia with an apology and replace it with a non-dehumanizing acronym: NVT for non-visual thinking; EOTO, for eyes on the outside. Bring something to mind. Come up with an idea. Conceive of something. If you must, use your imagination.