April 5, 2021 : Today is a big day for all of us in the global trauma healing world: We have a new name, a new “look,” and a new focus.
In 2020, everybody’s world was turned upside down, including ours. In addition to the urgent needs to evaluate and discuss what would come next—for our upcoming trainings, our trainings already underway, our staff, and our need to respond to a global pandemic with its accompanying trauma—we made time to focus on our recently-updated mission. After requesting and receiving feedback from our global community, in early 2020 the Board and a working group had finalized our new strategic plan, including a new mission statement:
Support trauma resolution and resilience through culturally responsive professional training, research, education and outreach in diverse global communities.
In addition, we offered a new vision statement, our desired end state:
Transforming lives through healing trauma.
As an organization, we recognized the need for our name to reflect the fact that SE impacts people around the world through our international community of SEPs. We are a global organization. The Board, with input from the community, decided on a new name: Somatic Experiencing International. We are no longer a U.S.-based trauma healing organization with some international connections. We are an international community of people committed to transforming lives through healing trauma. Thanks to our experienced organizers who support and promote the value and benefits of SE, we now operate in 40 countries. SE is being used to respond to natural and human-made disasters, to support war veterans, to support survivors of sex trafficking, to support traumatized medical professionals through a variety of prominent efforts throughout the world, and so many more. Our scope and focus are international—a passion to support trauma resolution for all.
Our new logo reflects our new name and our global focus. The design drivers for the visual theme were to modernize it, simplify it, and give it an “expansive” feel. The logo’s symbol includes circular lines on the left that reach towards those on the right to eventually complete the circles—symbolic of wholeness and healing. The central feature of the symbol is a Hoberman Sphere, symbolizing the expansion and contraction of the nervous system. The use of geometric shapes nods to the science of SE and the new color palette uses colors rooted in nature and the symbolism of the tiger.
What do these changes in our identity mean?
An identity is more than just a name, logo, symbol, or tagline. It is, indeed, far more than its individual parts. It is the character, ethos, and values of an organization, reflecting its culture and mission, as presented to the public. Identity—both name and visual representation—is a statement to the world. It is how the organization views itself and, therefore, has a great deal to do with how the world views the organization. Paul Rand, the late designer of such well-known identities as those for IBM, ABC, Westinghouse, the USPS, and NeXT, once said that “a logo is always a reflection of a company and not, as is commonly understood, the other way around . . . it is a kind of vessel that is filled with meaning by the company.”
The entire global SE community is what fills this “vessel” with meaning—changing and influencing our culture, our training, our outreach, our people, and our vision for the future. We come together as a community to transform lives by healing trauma.
This day is not only a big day for us and our new “presence” in the world. It is the first day of an expanded commitment to a global SE community. Today, you’ll see changes to parts of our website, our newsletter, and our social media channels, with much more to come during the next month. We are excited to connect. We invite you to continue with us on this journey.
Gratefully,
The Somatic Experiencing International Board of Directors