This collaboration between the Interaction Data Lab (Learning Planet Institute), the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard, and the University of Cambridge investigates how relational embodiment practices—integrating mindfulness, nervous system regulation, and psychotherapy—can foster empathy, transform suffering, and strengthen the foundations of collective intelligence.
Our focus is on how people and groups learn to regulate stress and tension not only within themselves but also between each other. By cultivating co-regulation, perspective-taking, and embodied awareness, individuals and groups can develop the trust and resilience needed to navigate conflict, hold complexity, and generate shared insight.
The project advances three interconnected strands:
- Measuring Empathy Readiness – Developing tools that capture both the willingness and the ability to decenter from one’s own perspective and engage with the complexity of another’s inner world, while maintaining healthy emotional boundaries.
- Transforming Suffering – Creating a developmental theory that maps how defensive responses can be metabolized into reflective holding and, ultimately, generative engagement. Drawing from contemplative science, trauma psychology, and social somatics, we treat suffering as a catalyst for growth and wise relationality.
- Narrative Monitoring & Evaluation – Designing new methods of storytelling, narrative elicitation, and computational text analysis to track shifts in empathy, regulation, and group coherence—capturing dynamics that standard surveys often miss.
By combining rigorous theory, embodied practice, and innovative analytics, we aim to illuminate how relational embodiment can transform individual and collective responses to suffering—laying the groundwork for more resilient communities and more intelligent forms of collaboration.
📄 Relational Embodiment: A Multi-Level Framework for Healing and Learning (Preprint)
🌱 A Multi-level Approach to the Inner Development Goals (IDG Book Chapter)
Interaction Data Lab 