Karla McLaren

Karla McLaren, M.Ed. is an award-winning author, social science researcher, workplace consultant, and empathy pioneer. Her work focuses on her grand unified theory of emotions, which revalues even the most “negative” emotions and opens startling new pathways into self-awareness, effective communication, and healthy empathy. She is the founder and CEO of Emotion Dynamics Inc. and the developer of the EmpathyAcademy.org online learning site.

McLaren has also developed the groundbreaking Six Essential Aspects of Empathy model that highlights all of the processes in healthy empathy and makes them easily understandable, accessible, and attainable. This fully realized model teaches people how to access, develop, and manage their empathy intentionally.

Her applied work, Dynamic Emotional Integration® (also known as DEI) is a trailblazing approach to emotions and empathy that reveals the genius and the healing power within the emotional realm. Licensed DEI Trainers and Consultants are available across the globe.

McLaren is the author of The Power of Emotions at Work: Accessing the Vital Intelligence in Your Workplace (2021), Embracing Anxiety: How to Access the Genius of this Vital Emotion (June 2020), The Dynamic Emotional Integration® Workbook (2018), The Art of Empathy: A Complete Guide to Life’s Most Essential Skill (2013), The Language of Emotions: What Your Feelings are Trying to Tell You (2010 and 2023), and the multi-media online course Emotional Flow: Becoming Fluent in the Language of Emotions (2012).

McLaren is also the coauthor (with cult expert Dr. Janja Lalich) of Escaping Utopia: Growing Up in a Cult, Getting Out, and Starting Over, which focuses on Dr. Lalich’s groundbreaking study of seventy people who were born in or grew up in forty different cults spanning twelve countries (Routledge, 2017).