Empath Karla McLaren is an award-winning author, social science researcher, and pioneering educator whose empathic approach to emotions has taken her through the healing of her own childhood trauma, into a healing career, and now into the study of sociology, anthropology, neurology, cognitive psychology, and education. She is the author of The Language of Emotions: What Your Feelings Are Trying to Tell You (Sounds True, 2010), the online course Emotional Flow: Becoming Fluent in the Language of Emotions (Sounds True, 2012) and The Art of Empathy: A Complete Guide to Life's Most Essential Skill (October, 2013).

Karla has taught at such venues as the University of San Francisco, Omega Institute, Naropa University, Kripalu, and the Association for Humanistic Psychology. Additionally, as a prison arts educator with the William James Foundation, she has utilized singing, drumming, and drama to help men in maximum security prisons explore and heal long-held emotional traumas. She is currently developing new forms of Empathy and Social Interaction curricula for neurologically diverse populations.

Karla lives in California with her husband, Tino Plank, a Master's level nurse educator who works in hospice and end-of-life care.