Eve Ekman of the Paul Ekman Group Collaborates with EMPATICUS in the Development of Emotion App.

The first product that was developed in collaboration between Pål Dobrin of EMPATICUS and Eve Ekman of the Paul Ekman Group was an app that provides the tools to map, monitor and regulate the users emotional experiences.

The app, EMOTIVATION, was unveiled at the prestigious Omega Institute in New York on August 17 for a panel of  preeminent experts in psychology, neuroscience, emotional intelligence, and mindfulness.

A Swedish version of the EMOTIVATION app is expected within a month.

The EMOTIVATION app is a reponse to the criticism for the lack of science in many of the apps in the field of self-help.  The user explores the relationship between different stimuli and their own emotional experiences by reporting their most recent strong emotions twice a day.  

The collaboration began in the summer of 2012 in Thailand where Pål Dobrin, CEO of EMPATICUS AB, participated in a leadership training course in the method of Cultivating Emotional Balance.  The method was developed to give people the tools to manage their emotions and focus their attention skills.  

Cultivating Emotional Balance is a researched-based approach that combines knowledge from the contemplative traditions with the latest advances in psychology.  Eve Ekman became the Course Leader when her father, Professor Paul Ekman, considered to be one of the century’s most influential psychologist, could not conduct the course. 

Pål and Eve soon realized that they shared common goals and the concept for cooperation commenced.  In addition to the interests that they shared, both had the experience of being the scion to their parents’ work in the area human emotions.  

Pål is the son of Gunilla Dobrin, a cognitive therapist from Gothenburg, Sweden, who conceived and developed the popular method, rePULSE, control your impulse's.   which is successfully used in Scandinavia and other parts of the world.

Eve also has large shoes to fill in since her father’s, Paul Ekman’s, research has, among other things, proved the existence of universal emotions and micro-expressions that reveal feelings that people attempt to conceal.  Professor Paul Ekman has written numerous books and has inspired a television series based on him.  The series is called, “Lie To Me,” starring Tim Roth in the lead role.

Eve Ekman is a San Francisco native who graduated from Gallatin School of Interdisciplinary study at NYU magna cum laude in 2002, and received her Master of Social Work in 2006 from the University of California Berkeley. After working for several years as a clinical case manager and crisis counselor at San Francisco General Hospital Emergency room Eve returned for a doctorate degree to learn advanced research skills to complement her experience and clinical skills for the purpose of studying empathy in a human service context and developing trainings for human service workers. Eve advanced to candidacy for her PhD in Social Welfare in May 2011 and will graduate in Spring of 2014.

 
In addition to pursuing her doctoral degree in the last three years Eve has been teaching the ten day intensive emotional skills component of the Cultivating Emotional Balance Teacher Training, CEBTT, with contemplative scholar B. Alan Wallace. The training was developed by Wallace and Eve’s father Paul Ekman at a Mind-Life meeting in the year 2000. Also Eve has given basic emotional skills workshops for lawyers, business men, school teachers and general public for audiences from San Francisco to Australia, Mexico and Singapore.
 
In her dissertation work Eve combined her clinical and training experience to develop a pilot training to support workers in human service settings. Eve’s preliminary dissertation study was developed while she was Greater Good Fellow to study the relationship between chronic stress, meaning and empathy. This progressed into the development and pilot of a 16 hour training for Juvenile Justice Officers in San Mateo County in 2012.
 
Eve lives in her beloved home town of San Francisco and when she is not writing she is surfing, cooking and getting lost in nature.