Dr. Marc Brackett

Psychologist · Founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence

Best known for research showing that naming our emotions is the first step to understanding and managing them — 'permission to feel.'

Our own AI-illustrated tribute — an artist's interpretation of Dr. Marc Brackett's public ideas, made for children. How we make Little Keys ↗

United States

Read the story they inspired → 🎧 Listen

Who is Dr. Marc Brackett?

Dr. Marc Brackett is a U.S.-born psychologist and the founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. His book "Permission to Feel" argues that recognizing and naming our emotions is the foundation for managing them well. That idea of naming feelings inspired a Little Keys story.

📊 The 20-second version

Yale

where he founded and directs the Center for Emotional Intelligence

Permission to Feel

his best-known book, on the power of naming and understanding emotions

Name it

the core idea — that naming a feeling is the first step to managing it

📝 The story behind the little key

A researcher of emotions

Brackett has spent his career studying emotional intelligence — how understanding our feelings helps us learn, connect, and thrive — and founded a center at Yale dedicated to it.

Permission to Feel

His book argues that children (and adults) do better when they're given permission to feel their emotions and taught to name them, rather than being told to push feelings away.

Name it to tame it

A central finding in his work is that simply naming an emotion helps calm and understand it — turning an overwhelming feeling into useful information, exactly the lesson tonight's story brings to life.

🔑 How this connects to their story

Cami the chameleon learns that her feelings aren't monsters but messengers — and that naming them is how she finally hears the message. That is exactly Dr. Marc Brackett's research: name it to tame it.

🦎 The Chameleon Who Learned to Feel →

🕰️ Their life, in brief

Career

Studies and teaches emotional intelligence.

2013

Founds the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence.

2019

Publishes Permission to Feel.

Today

Continues researching and teaching emotional intelligence at Yale.

Frequently asked questions

What is Marc Brackett known for?

For his research on emotional intelligence, for founding the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, and for the idea that naming a feeling is the first step to managing it.

What is Permission to Feel about?

It argues that children and adults do better when they're given permission to feel their emotions and taught to name them, rather than being told to push feelings away.

What can kids learn from Marc Brackett?

To "name it to tame it". Saying "I feel frustrated" or "I feel nervous" is the first step to feeling better.

Which Little Keys story did he inspire?

"The Chameleon Who Learned to Feel": Cami the chameleon learns the names of her color-changing feelings, and once she can name them, they stop being storms and start being messengers.

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📚 Books by Dr. Marc Brackett