In my ideal world, about 8 years from now I will be graduating with my doctorate in clinical psychology ready to officially venture into the world of adulting and helping others. While plans change and life tends to throw endless curve balls, especially when you are considering a time frame of 8-10 years, this is my goal. My heart is set on working in therapy for veterans and military members struggling with PTSD. A military client population has been a potential option that I have considered for a while now, but my interest in focusing on this population peaked in 2016. While I have heard statistics about PTSD and suicide rates numerous times, and it has always been a thought in the back of my mind, it wasn’t until the 22 Push Up challenge became popular that I decided that I wanted to be able to make a difference in this statistic. The idea behind the 22 Push Up challenge was to spread awareness about veteran suicide by challenging people to do 22 push ups every day to represent the 22 veterans a day that die by suicide. While this may not catch people’s attention to the affect that it caught mine, this challenge was very effective in making people realize that something needed to change. 22 lives a day is way too many.

                  That being said, this sparked my interest in PTSD in the military specifically in why some people may be more prone to it and what may be causing these symptoms as well as how can you use the knowledge of causes to find a more effective treatment. While there are many factors that play a role into the development of PTSD, one important aspect that researchers have found is a connection between the amount of gray matter in the brain of people diagnosed with PTSD compared to the amount of gray matter in a non-PTSD patient’s brain. Gray matter is a part of the central nervous system that is made up of neuronal cell bodies and it plays an important role in our body’s stress response. It has been found that people with PTSD may have structural damage in their gray matter in their limbic and frontal cortical brain regions. These regions contain the hippocampus and the amygdala—both important brain areas in regards to memory and emotion. This decreased grey matter in the hippocampus and the amygdala can lead to changes in memory and concentration as well as increased startle responses and hyperarousal—all of which are among the list of symptoms related to PTSD.

                  While decreased gray matter may be associated with PTSD, there are many other changes in the brain that may be related to either the cause or the effect of traumatic experiences that often times lead to the development of PTSD. That being said, I am very interested in studying what may make one person more prone to developing PTSD than another and if these differences are genetic or if it is a matter of the person’s environment. By understanding what may cause someone to develop PTSD after experiencing a traumatic event, therapists would be able to more effectively treat people with this disorder my combining a variety of treatment methods.