Why Selcouth?
Selcouth is an old English word meaning wonderfully unusual - something rare, unexpected, and worthy of curiosity. This name was chosen because it reflects the heart of this work. At Selcouth, we believe every person deserves to be understood, valued, and supported as they are.
To witness your wonder is to approach difference with curiosity and to recognize a person’s ways of thinking, communicating, connecting, and moving through the world as meaningful parts of who they are.
Our goal is to help Autistic and otherwise neurodivergent people understand themselves, feel confident in who they are, and advocate for what they need while helping the people, environments, and systems around them learn to adapt, accommodate, and make room for them.
The Story Behind Our Logo
From the beginning, Selcouth’s visual identity was intended to reflect the same values that guide our clinical work.
Our logo was created in collaboration with Joy, an autistic designer whose lived experience brought an important perspective to the design process.
This collaboration was about more than creating a visual identity. It reflects one of Selcouth’s core commitments: if our work is intended to support neurodivergent people, neurodivergent voices should help shape how that work is understood and represented.
A bit about the collaboration and designer:
Joy Lu is an award-winning autistic designer, artist, writer, and advocate. She holds an MA in Design Products from the Royal College of Art (London, UK) and a BFA in Industrial Design from the Rhode Island School of Design (USA). Informed by her lived experience, Joy specialises in disability-inclusive and neurodivergent-informed design.
Working closely with Kristin, Joy designed the Selcouth logo to bring the clinic's vision and philosophy to life through a thoughtful and meaningful visual identity.
The final design draws inspiration from the infinity symbol, with two human profiles integrated into each side of the form and facing one another in conversation. It reflects the importance of curiosity, dialogue, and connection within the therapeutic relationship. Distinct patterns rest within each profile, symbolising the different yet equally beautiful ways that individuals think, process, and experience the world.
At the centre of the logo, the two sides meet through a smooth colour gradient, creating a visual sense of exchange and continuity. This shared space represents empathy, mutual understanding, and the connections that can emerge through open communication.
A contrast also exists between the linework and the interior shapes. The darker colour sits within the lighter outline, while the lighter colour appears within the darker, symbolising reciprocal understanding: remaining distinct while gradually learning from and resonating with one another. This relationship is reminiscent of the balance between Yin and Yang, where each contains an element of the other.
Contact Joy at joy.lu@network.rca.ac.uk
Learn more about her work https://joyludesign.wixsite.com/curiousworld
Centering Lived Experience
Clinical training provides important knowledge, but good practice also requires recognizing the limits of professional expertise.
Some of the most meaningful shifts in neurodiversity-affirming practice have come from autistic people describing their own experiences, challenging long-held assumptions, and bringing forward perspectives historically overlooked within psychology.
At Selcouth, lived experience and professional knowledge are valued as complementary sources of expertise. Our practice is shaped by both. We are committed to continued learning, thoughtful reflection, and allowing neurodivergent voices to meaningfully influence how we understand and practice neurodiversity-affirming care.
No single autistic person can represent the breadth of autistic experience. We intentionally learn from people with different communication styles, support needs, identities, professions, and lived experiences. These are some of the voices* that have challenged our thinking, expanded our understanding, and helped shape the way we practice: (Click on the names to go to their work.)
*this is not an exhaustive list
Autistic educator and AAC user advocating for communication access, inclusion, autonomy, and disability rights.
Autistic researcher known for the Double Empathy Problem and work exploring autistic communication, relationships, and participation.
Minimally speaking autistic scholar and advocate whose work explores communication, sensory experience, disability, and inclusion.
Autistic scholar, author, and psychologist whose work explores neurodiversity, identity, and the Neurodiversity Paradigm.
Autistic author and clinician whose work explores sensory experience, communication, regulation, and autistic ways of experiencing the world.
AuDHD psychologist, author, and educator focused on identity, masking, burnout, nervous-system regulation, and affirming care.
Autistic advocate, educator, and scholar bringing an intersectional perspective to autism, disability, race, identity, and inclusion.
Autistic researcher and author whose work explores masking, burnout, identity, stigma, and autistic experience.
Autistic gestalt language processor, educator, and author whose work explores language, literacy, learning, and affirming education.