OUR APPROACH

What is emotional data processing?

“All emotions at their core are meant to be adaptive and are specifically trying to provide us with important information about our surroundings to assist us in navigating our worlds.”

- Dr. L. Kevin Chapman, Clinical Psychologist

Emotional data refers to the analytical process of interpreting emotional intelligence. In a society that increasingly recognizes emotional intelligence, a term first coined and defined by psychology scholars John D. Mayer and Peter Salavoy as “the ability to monitor one’s own and other people’s emotions,  to discriminate between different emotions and label them appropriately, and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behaviour” (Salavoy & Mayer, 1990). Dr. Daniel Goleman, often referred to as the grandfather of this theory and approach, popularized the term through his book,  Emotional Intelligence published in the mid-nineties. 

Ms. Karlyn Percil-Mercieca is informed by and builds on this scholarship along with contemporary emotional data thought leaders such as Dr. Feldman Barrett whose book, How Emotions are Made, finds that emotions aren’t an objective thing; they’re learned and something that our brains construct. (Feldman Barrett,  2017). And in her latest book, Seven and a Half Lessons About The Brain, Dr. Feldman Barrett describes our brains as dance partners and the impact on emotions like empathy. Through her work, Dr. Feldman  Barrett shows the brain’s ability to efficiently predict the inner struggles of people familiar to them, and why it is harder to empathize when people are different (Feldman Barrett, 2020). 

Within the context of professional settings, Ms. Karlyn leverages Harvard Business Review’s, “Inner  Work Life: Understanding the Subtext of Work Performance”, research conducted by Teresa Amabile and Steven J Kramer. This research shows that, for better or worse, emotions influence employees’  commitment, creativity, decision-making, work quality, and the likelihood of sticking around – and these effects can be seen on the bottom line (Amabile & Kramer, 2015). To help organizations better understand the language of their emotions, Ms. Percil encourages teams to consider concepts developed by Clinical  Psychologist Dr. L. Kevin Chapman who asserts that emotions are made up of the feeling/physical component “how I feel in my body”, the thinking/cognitive component “what I say to myself”, and the behavioural component “what I do” (Chapman, 2016).

Building on these and other evidence-based concepts, Ms. Percil-Mercieca has developed numerous models and frameworks for helping clients to better understand their emotions so that they can increase their sphere of influence, lean into their creativity, and show up more mindfully for themselves and their colleagues. As a multi-disciplinary emotional data expert deeply committed to equity and structural  change, Ms. Percil-Mercieca has developed a distinct approach that includes the following: 

● Organizational Change Theory: a theoretical understanding of change processes and  organizational dynamics using the identification of factors and strategies to evaluate,  explain, and encourage change (Batras, Duff & Smith, 2016) 

● Equity-Based Principles: regulatory principles applied in social spaces that are rooted in  being fair, just, and right in both spirit and habit (Hart, 1974) 

● Intersectionality: a lens/framework that considers the complex way that power collides with  overlapping social categorizations (or identities) resulting in discrimination or disadvantage  for a person or group of people (Crenshaw, 1989) 

● First Voice Theory: sometimes referenced as “lived experience”, it is a theory used in social work  referring to the first and most significant piece of historical evidence - a client’s story (Dybicz, 2012) 

By seamlessly integrating these additional theoretical frameworks and values into her practice, Ms. Percil-Mercieca ensures that histories of marginalization, social location and uneven power relations are considered when engaging a diverse range of stakeholders. Ms. Percil-Mercieca’s primary objective is to help institutions,  communities and individuals master their inner engineering and increase personal agency while contributing to individual and collective well-being, productivity and prosperity.