Sherylin Thompson

Emotion, Trauma & Mindfulness Specialist

Hello, I’m Sherylin Thompson and I’m an Integrative Psychotherapist working with emotion trauma and psychological difficulties using mindfulness therapies. I’m also a doctoral researcher on these issues and I have developed a special interest in using mindfulness evidence-based therapies to help my clients recover from traumatic experiences. Thank you for visiting my profile - if you are reading this, you yourself may be a survivor of traumatic childhood experiences, know of someone who is or perhaps you share my interest in mindfulness and wanted to know more. Whatever your reason, welcome, and I am very pleased to be able to share some of my advice and expertise with you.

If you’re not familiar with mindfulness, it is about making a choice to be more aware of present reality and to experience it non-judgementally in the very immediate moment. This might sound easy, but the psychological defences people build up over a lifetime can make the practice very challenging. One of its strengths is that you can apply it to your everyday life and it becomes a skill that not only helps you overcome difficulties, but to live a more meaningful and engaged existence.

Mindfulness is a practice used in modern Western cognitive science and ancient Eastern philosophical traditions and therefore literally bridges divides. It has commanded the respect of neuroscientists and meditators alike, and has withstood the test of centuries. Advanced brain-imaging technology has shown that Mindfulness can also bridge the divides between the left and right hemispheres of our brains. This is highly significant in the treatment of trauma, and even more so in survivors of childhood neglect and abuse. The right hemisphere of our brains stores emotional responses to traumatic experiences and the body’s automatic reaction to threat such as increased heart and breathing rate. Research has shown that survivors of traumatic childhood experiences especially have higher activity in the right hemisphere, which is also shown to result in clinical depression or anxiety. Studies also exist demonstrating that the therapy produces significant increases in left-hemisphere activity, a pattern associated with emotional wellbeing. Please don’t hesitate to ask me about my research in more detail or for help and advice on applying mindfulness. I am also very happy to be available at Greatvine to share this specialist knowledge with the general public, other researchers and psychotherapists. My best regards,

Sherylin