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When Feelings Armor Up: Working with Anger, Cynicism and Numbness in Trust and Safety
Activity description
This activity examines emotional numbing and defensive coping in Trust & Safety work. Participants will learn to distinguish protective emotional responses from trauma‑related avoidance and support clients in safely restoring emotional range without increasing overwhelm or exposure burden.
This activity is designed to meet the educational needs of psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, counselors, and other mental health professionals involved in the assessment and treatment of individuals working in Trust & Safety, content moderation, or other high‑exposure digital environments.
At the end of this educational activity, participants should be able to:
- Recognize anger, cynicism and emotional withdrawal as short-term adaptive coping responses in Trust and Safety work.
- Use a primary/secondary emotion lens to explore what sits underneath protected or armored emotional responses.
- Describe how culture, gender, and contextual factors shape which emotions are expressed, muted or hidden in high-exposure digital work.
- Evaluate what these coping patterns help with and what they make more difficult, and integrate this understanding into broader clinical formulation.
Provided by
This activity is provided by Optum Health Education and Optum Whole Health Solutions.
Commercial support
No commercial support was received for this activity.
Required hardware/software
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Presenter
Zoe Wyatt-Potage, ACSW, PhD
Accredited Clinical Social Worker
Global Clinical Consultant, Optum
About the presenter
Dr Zoe Wyatt-Potage is an Accredited Clinical Social Worker and clinical consultant with a PhD in trauma and resilience. She has been affiliated with Optum for over 14 years and brings an evidence-based, neuroscience-informed approach to psychological wellbeing. Based in Cairns, Australia, she has lived and worked across Southeast Asia, Dubai and Mauritius, supporting individuals, teams and leaders in high-pressure environments. Dr Zoe has extensive experience translating psychology, neuroscience and trauma-informed practice into practical strategies that clinicians can use in everyday work. Her work focuses on helping professionals respond to stress, trauma exposure and complex emotional demands. She is also a published writer and conference speaker in the areas of wellbeing, neuroscience and mental health.
Activity planners
Elizabeth Albert, MD
Clinical Activity Manager
Optum Health Education
Jacqueline Egan
DWS Director
Emotional Wellbeing Solutions, Optum Whole Health Solutions
Roxane Medhaug
Associate Director of Global Business Initiatives and Solutions
Emotional Wellbeing Solutions, Optum Whole Health Solutions
Disclosures of relevant financial relationships
In accordance with the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education's (ACCME) Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Education, Optum Health Education (OHE) requires all those in control of educational content to disclose their financial relationships with ineligible companies within the prior 24 months. Ineligible companies are defined by the ACCME as companies whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing health care products used by or on patients. Individuals must disclose all financial relationships, regardless of the amount, with ineligible companies and regardless of their view of the relevance of the relationship to the education. OHE ensures that the content is independent of commercial bias.
The presenters and activity planners have no financial relationships to disclose.
Method for calculating CE credit
CE credit was calculated by the complexity of content.
Accreditation statement
Credit designation statements
Psychologists
Optum Health Education is approved by the American Psychological Association (APA) to offer continuing education for psychologists. Optum Health Education maintains responsibility for this program. 1.00 CE hour.
Social workers
As a Jointly Accredited Organization, Optum Health Education is approved to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Organizations, not individual courses, are approved under this program. State and provincial regulatory boards have the final authority to determine whether an individual course may be accepted for continuing education credit. Optum Health Education maintains responsibility for this course. Social workers completing this course receive 1.00 enduring continuing education credits.
Counselors and/or marriage and family therapists
CA: The Board of Behavioral Sciences has deferred CE course approvals to APA and ASWB for its licensees. See those approvals under Psychologists and Social Workers.
Other States: If your state is not specifically listed, nearly all state Counselor and MFT boards accept either APA or ASWB approval, or are reciprocal with other state licensing board approvals. Check with your board to be sure.
Attendance
A certificate of attendance will be provided to learners upon completion of activity requirements, enabling participants to register with licensing boards or associations that have not been preapproved for credits. To apply for credit types not listed above, participants should use the procedure established by the specific organization from which they wish to obtain credit.
Available Credit
- 1.00 APA - Psychologists
- 1.00 Attendance - General Attendance
You must be logged into your account to participate in this activity. Get started by clicking “Register/Continue” and following the instructions. At the end of the activity, you will be able to view, save or print your certificate of participation. A complete listing of all of your activities can be found under “My Account,” “My Activities.”