Same (but different): Neurodiversity-friendly mindfulness practice

Robert Marx is co-lead for the Sussex Mindfulness Centre and leads the Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy in Talking Therapies in NHS services training centres collaboration. He is a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist and has been teaching mindfulness to patients and staff in the NHS for almost twenty years.

He teaches Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy, Mindful Self-Compassion and leads Compassionate Leadership Training.

Robert has been practising Buddhist meditation for over 30 years, initially in the Theravadan tradition and then in the Tibetan tradition. He is passionate about building compassionate cultures in organisations and about integrating relational and mindful approaches to work.

Tamara is the Founder and Director of the Mindfulness Centre of Excellence (UK), an innovation thinktank for secular mindfulness.She is a clinical psychologist and neuroscientist specialising in “brainwise” formulated mindfulness adaptations for groups and individuals.  She has been leading a multi-disciplinary “protocol free” mindfulness teacher training in Brasil based on her Body in Mind Training approach (brainwise mindful movement) for more than fifteen years.

Tamara specialises in making mindfulness accessible to those who struggle to access “classical” mindfulness protocols for personal or systemic reasons. This includes creating many bespoke mindfulness interventions and providing supervision to those innovating in mindfulness delivery.

Julie James

Julie is a mindfulness practitioner and Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapist, working within an NHS Talking Therapies service. She regularly runs MBCT for Depressions groups, as well as Breathworks’ mindfulness for health groups, to adults experiencing mental health difficulties. As mindfulness lead, Julie provides Supervision and CPD to qualified mindfulness teachers and trainees. 

Julie trained with the Anna Freud centre and now provides training to NHS colleagues, to improve service provision when working with diagnosed and undiagnosed autistic adults in community mental health settings. As an autistic person, she has found mindfulness-based interventions and practices deeply supportive and transformative in her own self-discovery and wellbeing. Julie draws on her specialist training and lived experience to make mindfulness provisions inclusive for all neurotypes. She is passionate about the delivery of these interventions within the NHS, to ensure equity in access across populations who may otherwise miss out.

Libby is a Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapist and clinical supervisor within the NHS, where she leads the pathways for musculoskeletal disorders and neurodiversity. She is also a recently qualified Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) teacher.

While Libby’s professional work centres on talking therapies including CBT, ACT, and MBCT, Libby’s neurodivergent experience (autistic, ADHD, dyslexic, and dyspraxic) has shaped a deeply personal and creative connection to embodied mindfulness beyond her NHS role. This exploration led her to establish a space rooted in movement, sensory awareness, and rhythm outside of her NHS role, which enables her to share her passion for embodied mindfulness.

Hannah is autistic and works as an administrator for the Sussex Mindfulness Centre. She is a volunteer advocate for the Sussex Mindfulness Centre and also volunteers as a ward befriender in acute mental health wards at the Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.

Over the past couple of years, Hannah has attended Minfulness Based Cognitive Therapy, Mindfulness for Life and Mindful Self-Compassion 8-week courses with the Sussex Mindfulness Centre.

In between these groups, she has used piano playing and mindful self-compassion practices to work through past traumatic events. Her daily meditation practice is a loving-kindness practice.