Eve Ekman
Eve draws from an interdisciplinary set of skills and knowledge from her professional work and personal practices in clinical social work, integrative medicine, emotional awareness, contemplative science, and meditation. Eve began her career in art and journalism seeking to create social change through transformative media experiences. Eve became a trained social worker at UC Berkeley and discovered a passion for the direct, applied practice of compassion in mental health and medical crisis settings. After six years working in the emergency room at a level one trauma center, Eve returned to UC Berkeley for a PhD to study burnout and test interventions to sustain compassion for frontline providers. At this same time Eve joined her father, Paul Ekman, and Buddhist scholar Alan Wallace in the first public training of an evidenced based contemplative science training for emotions, Cultivating Emotional Balance, CEB.
In her PhD dissertation Eve delivered a CEB based program to Juvenile Justice Officers, and in her Postdoctoral Training at UCSF Osher Center of Integrative Medicine she continued this work with physicians in training, nurses, and hospital staff. Since 2010 Eve has been developing, delivering, and evaluating the practices for addressing burnout through the lens of diminishing destructive emotions, altruistic intelligence, and integrated compassion for applied settings such as hospital, educational, and criminal justice systems. Eve has also consulted with organizations large and small to offer training and consultations across professional settings from the courtroom to the hospital room to the board room.
Eve’s first formal training in meditation came from Tibeat Buddhist teacher and prolific author B. Alan Wallace. Eve learned and teaches Alan’s simple secularized version of deep Tibetan Budshist teachings including attention, introspection, and heart practices which are offered in CEB. Eve has had the good fortune to learn subtle body and awareness practices from Tsoknyi Rimpoche during Dzogchen retreats in California and Colorado. Her primary teacher is Jennifer Welwood who brings together Vajrayana Teachings and Western Psychological orientation embody compassionate transformation for the sake of all beings.
