How Service Design Can Help with Deep Wounds & Healing

Tuesday, May 19th - 6:00-8:00 PM EDT
Presentation
How Service Design Can Help with Deep Wounds & Healing

Event Description
As the world grows more complex, individuals and organizations are navigating greater uncertainty, rapid change, and increasing emotional strain. Building resilience in this environment requires more than external problem-solving–it calls for deeper personal reflection and attention to mental health. This talk draws from a personal journey through grief and burnout, uncovering parallels between service design methods and therapeutic frameworks.

When we face significant life events resulting in trauma to our system, the process of stabilizing and healing can feel unfamiliar, messy, emotional, and difficult to make sense of. But, as service designers, we're uniquely suited to tackle whatever life throws at us. The same skills used to understand systems, map journeys, and navigate ambiguity at work can also support how we process our own experiences alongside a licensed professional.

This talk explores how service designers can recognize and engage with therapeutic approaches that mirror their existing toolkit. By asking more informed questions and working with a therapist to apply familiar frameworks in new ways, service designers can better understand their own behavioral patterns, make meaning of their lived experiences, and move through difficult chapters with greater structure, awareness, and support.

About Our Speaker
Natalie Kuhn
Natalie Kuhn is founder of Here with the Herd, offering experiential learning for people with horses as well as Co-Founder of the global retreat company VAYRAH Experience. Previously she was a Senior Director of Design at Capital One, design leader at Meta within Data Privacy, and spent years as a Lead Service Designer at FJORD within Accenture Interactive.

Natalie brings almost 20 years in human-centered design and research. She co-ran the SDN New York Chapte