Malka Ceh, PhD, MSc, cNPA

Emotions form the core from which you act.

Steer Your Course.

Thrive from the inside out: cultivate your emotional competence.

Emotions may seem vague and elusive, intangible forces that come and go without logic or structure. They may feel like fog, blurring the edges of thought, impossible to grasp or pin down. But they can be understood and figured out. I'm here to explain a scientifically grounded viewpoint: emotions are biological programs molded by evolution, designed not to make you happy, but to propagate life.

Emotions are deep-running patterns programmed to shape how you perceive, think, and act. They are the essence of your experience and the agent behind your behavior. They are here to guide you, though not necessarily to where you'd want to go. Learning their language lets you engage in the most vital conversation of your life.

Sun's rays in fog through branches of tree.

The Stories You Tell Yourself About Emotions And the Ones That Tell on You

These five familiar beliefs about emotions feel true. They aren't. Learn what affective science reveals about why emotions exist and how to work with them.

Get the Myths (and the Real Story)

Emotional Health: The Foundation of Your Well-Being

Emotions set the terms you play on

From your health and career to your relationships and mood, emotions shape every bit of your life. Managing your emotional foundations turns setbacks into fuel for growth. Solid emotional competence is the groundwork for lasting stability and ownership.

Your Everyday: Shaping the Sky You Live Under

Emotions are your inner weather. There’s no such thing as a day without weather, but you may not notice it until it turns unpleasant. Emotional health feels like relocating to a more livable climate or learning to dress for the one you're in. It also means knowing how to sail with the wind when it changes.

Close up shot of hands working with soil

Health Goals: From Battle to Rhythm

The difference between struggling with healthy habits and maintaining them lies in your emotional patterns. Understanding your emotional programming allows you to smooth the path. Shift the emotional forces at the root, and change becomes less a matter of willpower and more a matter of momentum.

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Relationships: Dancing with Significants' Emotions

Relationships are the centerpiece of life’s ballroom, your most essential dance partners. Sometimes they move with grace, sometimes they miss a beat and land on your toes. Learning to synchronize your emotional rhythm and theirs helps you stay in step, even when the music changes without warning.

Serious old mentor teaching intern or student pointing at laptop

Professional Success, Emotionally Speaking

Career success isn’t shaped only by what you know. It depends far more on how you relate to others, move through pressure, read a room, and respond when things feel frayed. Emotions shape the way you build relationships, navigate challenges, and manage the subtle balance of expectations. Emotional competence is what allows you to carry all the moving pieces with steadiness and clarity.

Family Bonds: From Pain Points to Harmony

Family patterns are like old hand-me-downs. They might still fit, but that doesn’t mean they suit you. Emotional health lets you tailor what you’ve inherited, turning outdated habits into more intentional and connected relationships. It’s not about erasing history, but about gently unpicking what no longer works and stitching together a way that finally does.

Modern Parenting: Holding It All Together

Your parenting instincts were shaped for simpler times, slower days, and many hands. They weren’t built to meet the modern sky-high expectations. You need tools to adapt your inherited responses to today’s complex realities, so you can meet the chaos with steadiness, presence, and a little more peace of mind.

What’s Here for You

Psychoanalysis and Coaching

Through personalized one-on-one work, I help you tune your emotional system to better serve your goals, values, and everyday life. Rather than aiming for quick fixes, my approach focuses on cultivating a sustainable inner rhythm that helps you think clearly, feel fully, and move through life with intention.

Online Classes and Workshops

Serious change begins with understanding. My classes and workshops offer thoughtful, structured ways to sharpen your emotional awareness and knowledge, and apply them to real-life situations. Each program is built on an evergreen curriculum designed to support slow, steady, and lasting growth.

Emotional Profile Assessment

Your emotional profile provides insight into how your emotional system is wired and how it shapes your experience and behavior from within. Grounded in affective science, this clinical assessment unfolds through a structured conversation. We explore your emotional patterns that shape your mood, motivation, achievement, relationships, and well-being.

Reflective Groups and Forums

Progress accelerates when you engage with others. These small, structured groups provide space to analyze patterns, test new perspectives, and exchange insights. Guided by affective science and structured dialogue, you'll explore everyday patterns and practice new ways of thinking, relating, and doing.

Malka Ceh

Emotional competence with science and strength.

I work at the intersection of science and everyday life. My background is in evolutionary anthropology, psychotherapy science, and psychoanalysis. I’ve spent years (and continue to) studying how emotions are built, what they’re formed for, and how they shape the way you live.

I don’t promise quick fixes or overnight transformation. Emotional growth is a slow, often uncomfortable process. It happens through deliberate work: examining yourself closely, facing truths you'd rather avoid, breaking through resistance, and repeating what doesn’t come naturally until it finally does. I help women who value in-depth insight and want to build lasting systems rather than temporary detours.

I offer psychoanalysis and coaching, host groups and workshops, and lead science-based classes to help you understand yourself and others more deeply, and to support a steady and coherent way of living and relating.

About Me

Hear from Experiences

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“The idea that emotions aren’t built to make you happy but to help you survive really clicked for me. It made sense immediately, even though I’d never looked at it that way. Now, when I feel sadness, I see it as my mind telling me to pause and reassess. It’s taken the guilt out of feeling certain things and freed me up to just do what needs to be done.”

- Daniela

“I used to think emotions were random or just in the way—like, why bother with anger or frustration? But realizing that emotions are signals designed to guide me was a game changer. For example, I learned that my anger usually means I feel blocked. Just naming that has helped me tackle situations at work with way more clarity and control.”

- Andrea

"The idea that emotions aren’t meant to make you happy but to help you survive really hit me. It made so much sense, but I’d never thought about it that way before. I’ve started noticing how sadness, for example, is just my mind telling me to slow down and reflect. It’s helped me stop beating myself up for feeling certain things and just do what I have to do anyway."

- Codie

“The idea that emotions aren’t built to make you happy but to help you survive really clicked for me. It made sense immediately, even though I’d never looked at it that way. Now, when I feel sadness, I see it as my mind telling me to pause and reassess. It’s taken the guilt out of feeling certain things and freed me up to just do what needs to be done.”

- Daniela

“I used to think emotions were random or just in the way—like, why bother with anger or frustration? But realizing that emotions are signals designed to guide me was a game changer. For example, I learned that my anger usually means I feel blocked. Just naming that has helped me tackle situations at work with way more clarity and control.”

- Andrea

"The idea that emotions aren’t meant to make you happy but to help you survive really hit me. It made so much sense, but I’d never thought about it that way before. I’ve started noticing how sadness, for example, is just my mind telling me to slow down and reflect. It’s helped me stop beating myself up for feeling certain things and just do what I have to do anyway."

- Codie

“The idea that emotions aren’t built to make you happy but to help you survive really clicked for me. It made sense immediately, even though I’d never looked at it that way. Now, when I feel sadness, I see it as my mind telling me to pause and reassess. It’s taken the guilt out of feeling certain things and freed me up to just do what needs to be done.”

- Daniela

“I used to think emotions were random or just in the way—like, why bother with anger or frustration? But realizing that emotions are signals designed to guide me was a game changer. For example, I learned that my anger usually means I feel blocked. Just naming that has helped me tackle situations at work with way more clarity and control.”

- Andrea

"The idea that emotions aren’t meant to make you happy but to help you survive really hit me. It made so much sense, but I’d never thought about it that way before. I’ve started noticing how sadness, for example, is just my mind telling me to slow down and reflect. It’s helped me stop beating myself up for feeling certain things and just do what I have to do anyway."

- Codie

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