About | NeuroExistential Therapy

Dr Sharon Zmigrod

Researcher, facilitator, and life coach

Who I am

I'm Dr Sharon Zmigrod, a cognitive neuroscientist, PSYCH-K® Preferred Facilitator and life coach. My private practice, NeuroExistential Therapy, brings together neuroscience, existential philosophy, and PSYCH-K® facilitation to support people through change, self-limiting patterns, and the search for a more authentic, richer, and healthier life.

My own path to health

For more than forty years, I lived with an autoimmune disease (Rheumatic fever), later developing gluten intolerance and food allergies that affected nearly every part of my daily life. What eventually shifted things wasn't another medication or another diet. It was working through the same balancing processes and existential questions that I now bring into session with clients.

Slowly, then all at once, what once seemed unchangeable began to shift. I regained my health, and with it, a freedom I hadn't dared to expect: the ability to eat what I want and to go through most days without pain, medication, or supplements. That change gave me back more than my health. It gave me back the time and capacity for the things I care about most.

Research

Before moving into private practice, I spent years researching how the mind integrates information, including the 'binding problem' in multisensory perception, along with consciousness, creativity, and cognitive flexibility, publishing this work in peer-reviewed journals including Psychological Research, Consciousness and Cognition, Brain Stimulation, and Multisensory Research. More recently, I've also been researching brain lateralisation, looking at how bilateral brain stimulation may support lasting change in deep-seated patterns. That research background still shapes how I think about change: carefully, evidentially, and with respect for how the mind actually works.

See selected publications →

Academic Degree

2010 - PhD. Cognitive Psychology, Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden University, Netherlands

2004 - M.A. Experimental Psychology, cum laude, Bar-Ilan University

2001 - Master of Business Administration, Heriot-Watt University, UK

1991 - B.Sc. Computer Science, cum laude, University of New Haven, USA

Training

PSYCH-K® Health & Wellbeing Program
PSYCH-K® Divine Integration Retreat
PSYCH-K® Master Facilitation workshop
PSYCH-K® Advanced Integration workshop
PSYCH-K® Basic workshop
Life coaching – University of Cambridge – Institute of Continuing Education
HeartMath®Certified Coach
EFT Training, Levels One & Two.

Full biography

Dr Sharon Zmigrod is a researcher, PSYCH-K® Preferred Facilitator, and life coach. Before moving into psychology and neuroscience, she trained as a software engineer and completed an MBA, and worked for several years in the high-tech industry.

She went on to complete her PhD and postdoctoral research in cognitive psychology and neuroscience at the Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden University, in the Netherlands, and worked as a visiting researcher at the University of Cambridge. Her research has examined the integration of the senses (the binding problem), consciousness, and creativity, and has been published in several peer-reviewed scientific journals.

In recent years, her research has turned toward combining existential philosophy with psychological and physiological processes, leading her to develop NeuroExistential therapy — a mind-body method that works with subconscious patterns through PSYCH-K® processes to support health, wellbeing, and self-actualisation. Her ongoing research examines how intuition and brain lateralisation contribute to this embodied process of change, informed by both neuroscience and philosophy. Sharon has presented her research at conferences internationally. She now runs a private practice dedicated to NeuroExistential therapy, drawing together neuroscience, existential philosophy, and PSYCH-K® to support clients' health and well-being.

Academic Publications

Zmigrod, L., Zmigrod, S., Rentfrow, P. J., & Robbins, T. W. (2019). The Psychological Roots of Intellectual Humility: The Role of Intelligence and Cognitive Flexibility. Personality and Individual Differences, 141, 200-208.
Zmigrod, L., Rentfrow, P. J., Zmigrod, S., & Robbins, T. W. (2018). Cognitive flexibility and religious disbelief. Psychological Research, 1-11.
Zmigrod, S., Zmigrod, L., & Hommel, B. (2016). Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex affects stimulus conflict but not response conflict, Neuroscience, 322, 320-325
Zmigrod, L., & Zmigrod, S. (2016). On the Temporal Precision of Thought: Individual Differences in the Multisensory Temporal Binding Window Predict Performance on Verbal and Nonverbal Problem Solving Tasks. Multisensory Research, 29(8), 679-701.
Zmigrod, S., Zmigrod, L., & Hommel, B. (2015). Zooming into Creativity: Individual Differences in Attentional Global-local Biases are linked to Convergent and Divergent Thinking Styles. Frontiers in Psychology, 6.
Zmigrod, S. & Zmigrod, L. (2015). Zapping the Gap: Reducing the multisensory temporal binding window by means of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). Consciousness and Cognition, 35, 143–149.
Zmigrod, S., Colzato, L.S., & Hommel, B. (2015). Stimulating creativity: modulation of convergent and divergent thinking by tDCS. Journal of Creativity, 27, 353-360.
Zmigrod, S. (2014). The Role of the Parietal Cortex in Multisensory and Response Integration: Evidence from Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS). Multisensory Research, 27(2), 161-172
Zmigrod, S., Colzato, L.S., & Hommel, B. (2014). Evidence for a role of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in controlling stimulus-response integration: A transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) study. Brain Stimulation.
Hommel, B., Memelink, J., Zmigrod, S., & Colzato, L.S. (2013). Attentional control of the creation and retrieval of stimulus-response bindings. Psychological Research.
Zmigrod, S., & Hommel, B. (2013). Feature integration across multimodal perception and action: A review. Multisensory Research, 26, 143-157.
Zmigrod, S., de Sonneville, L.M.J., Colzato, L.S., Swaab, H. & Hommel, B. (2013). Cognitive control of feature bindings: Evidence from children with autistic spectrum disorder. Psychological Research, 77, 147-154.
Colzato, L.S., Zmigrod, S., & Hommel, B. (2013). Working memory updating predicts individual differences in updating stimulus-response episodes. Visual Cognition, 21, 13-22.
Colzato, L.S., Zmigrod, S., & Hommel, B. (2013). Dopamine, norepinephrine, and the management of sensorimotor bindings: Individual differences in updating of stimulus-response episodes are predicted by DAT1, but not DBH5. Experimental Brain Research, 228, 213-220.
Colzato, L.S., van den Wildenberg, W., Zmigrod, S., & Hommel, B. (2013). Action video gaming and cognitive control: Playing first-person shooter games is associated with improvement in working memory but not action inhibition. Psychological Research, 77, 234-239.
Colzato, L.S., van Wouwe, N., Hommel, B., Zmigrod, S., Ridderinkhof, R., & Wylie, S. (2012). Dopaminergic modulation of the updating of stimulus-response episodes in Parkinson's disease. Behavioural Brain Research, 228, 82-86.
Zmigrod, S., & Hommel, B. (2011). The relationship between feature binding and consciousness: Evidence from asynchronous multi-modal stimuli. Consciousness and Cognition, 20, 586-593
Zmigrod, S., & Hommel, B. (2010). Temporal dynamics of unimodal and multimodal feature binding. Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics, 72, 142-152.
Zmigrod, S., Spapé, M., & Hommel, B. (2009). Intermodal event files: Integrating features across vision, audition, taction, and action. Psychological Research, 73, 674-684.
Zmigrod, S., & Hommel, B. (2009). Auditory event files: Integrating auditory perception and action planning. Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics, 71, 352-362.