Emotions and pain spread rapidly between us without our knowing. When we notice that we are sharing how others are feeling we can call this ‘somatic empathy’

The board game GO is the hardest in the world. A competion between AI and human Lee Sedol, the best of the best, reveals how much we humans use somatic empathy to help us read other people.

To understand how hands-on bodywork can influence a person’s emotional, physiological and mental state, we need an appreciation of feedback loops.

Somatic empathy is not about being nice; nor is it something only ‘empaths’ experience. It is an ancient intelligence that enables us to understand and therefore predict the intentions of others.

Survival has an aspect of quality about it. A wild animal needs to do more than survive; it has to maintain a healthy condition in order to compete with others for resources and avoid predators.

Lying is incredibly effective, even when the lie is obvious. To understand why, we need to dig deep into our evolutionary past