Description & Objectives

Continuing Education Hours: 1.5 CEs for LPC, SW, LMFT, and Psychologists - NBCC Approved

Description: This presentation will describe the effects of trauma in our nervous system. In periods of stress, the body’s fight, flight or freeze response activates. A healthy nervous system experiences the stress but has the ability to return to normal when the threat has passed. However, our nervous system can lose that ability when the body experiences trauma. Traumatic events can make us lose our ability to regulate ourselves. Our sympathetic nervous system can get overstimulated (fight or flight) and we experience constant anxiety, anger, restlessness, or panic. In other people, the nervous system shuts down (freeze) resulting in depression, disconnection, and apathy.    
We will explore techniques to recover our ability to self-regulate and activate our parasympathetic nervous system. We will practice and discover activities that can help trigger a calming and healing response in our body, connecting our mind to the present moment, such as: progressive relaxation, breathing techniques, mindful activities connecting mind and body, mindful movement, playing with pets, etc. We will also highlight the importance of practicing self-care to release stress and pull the nervous system back into regulation.   

Learning Objectives:

  • Understand events that can lead to trauma: explicit and covert.  
  • Understand the effects of trauma in our nervous system.  
  • Learn techniques to recover our ability to self-regulate and activate our parasympathetic nervous system. 
  • Highlight the importance of practicing self-care to release stress and pull the nervous system back into regulation.  

Instructor

Galia Goya

Galia Goya is the Bilingual Community Educator at Hope’s Door New Beginning Center. Galia works to empower community members of all ages to foster healthy relationships and to prevent, recognize, and respond to all forms of abuse. Galia pursued a law degree, hoping to use law as an avenue to promote human rights and create social change. After years of practicing law in Mexico, Galia moved to the U.S. to pursue a Master of Law at Yale Law School and was later met with a restriction to practice law as a foreign lawyer. Galia reinvented herself and found a new path to pursue her passion for social change and public service, finding fulfillment in non-profit and volunteer work.