The dissociative disorders are all presumed to be caused by a common mechanism,

dissociation, which results in some aspects of cognition or experience being inaccessible

consciously. Thus, dissociation involves the failure of consciousness to perform its usual role
of integrating our cognitions, emotions, motivations, and other aspects of experience in our
awareness. Some mild dissociative states are very common—in one example of a loss of self-
awareness, a preoccupied person may miss a turn on the road home when thinking about
problems. In contrast to common dissociative experiences like these, dissociative disorders
are thought to result from extremely high levels of dissociation. Both psychodynamic and
behavioral theorists consider pathological dissociation to be an avoidance response that
protects the person from consciously experiencing stressful events. Among people
undergoing very intense stressors, such as advanced military survival training, many report
brief moments of mild dissociation (Morgan, Hazlett, Wang, et al., 2001). To put more
simply, it is described that Dissociative disorder are a disorder which the subject had At least
two distinct personalities that act independently of each other.

One example of the case happened in South Korea in 2016, A 20-year-old Korean male was
transferred from the military hospital and admitted to an intensive psychiatric ward due to
complaints of episodic violent behaviors toward fellow soldiers and changes in character and
personality, which began at the onset of his military service two months earlier. Four months
prior to admission, the patients returned home after six years of study abroad. His parents
reported that the patient's behaviors differed from those of a visit one year prior, when he was
shy and timid. After his return to Korea, the man appeared very confident and told his parents
he would fare well in military service. In addition, he was very forgetful, often losing his
belongings. The patient was on one occasion found by police in an alley far from his house,
and he could not remember how he got there. Shortly after these incidents, the patient
reported to the army for mandatory military service. At training camp, he seemed passionate
and outgoing, quite different from his usual identity.

On several occasions, he only spoke English, which is not his native language. One incident
involved a violent assault, in which the man injured another soldier. Alarmed by his emergent
psychiatric problems, the military sent him to a psychiatric unit, where the staffs observed
several different personalities. After one week, the military psychiatric staff decided to send
him to a specialized civilian psychiatric hospital.

Somatoform disorder, or now known as somatic symptom disorders, is any mental disorder
that manifests as physical symptoms that suggest illness or injury, but cannot be explained
fully by a general medical condition or by the direct effect of a substance, and are not
attributable to another mental disorder. some people might have a condition that defies
diagnosis because of limits in medical knowledge and technology. Indeed, most people
experience at least one mild unexplained physical symptom at some point in their lifetime.

The exact cause of somatic symptom disorder isn't clear, but any of these factors may play a
role:

 Genetic and biological factors, such as an increased sensitivity to pain

 Family influence, which may be genetic or environmental, or both
 Personality trait of negativity, which can impact how you identify and perceive illness and
bodily symptoms
 Decreased awareness of or problems processing emotions, causing physical symptoms to
become the focus rather than the emotional issues
 Learned behavior — for example, the attention or other benefits gained from having an
illness; or "pain behaviors" in response to symptoms, such as excessive avoidance of
activity, which can increase your level of disability

And the risk factors for somatic symptom disorder include:

 Having anxiety or depression

 Having a medical condition or recovering from one
 Being at risk of developing a medical condition, such as having a strong family history of
a disease
 Experiencing stressful life events, trauma or violence
 Having experienced past trauma, such as childhood sexual abuse
 Having a lower level of education and socio-economic status

One example of the case is happening to Martin who is a 31-year-old married male who has
been seen by Dr. Smith, a primary care physician who practices near Martin’s work. Martin
began to see Dr. Smith three months ago after abdominal pain he had been experiencing for
about a year was becoming progressively worse. Martin noticed that the abdominal pain
would come on intermittently, was located everywhere in his abdomen and was not
consistently related to food intake. He tried changing his diet and cutting out dairy products,
wheat products and even meat, but nothing seemed to help. He quit drinking any alcohol or
caffeine, and the pain only seemed to become more frequent and severe. Before he went to
see Dr. Smith, the pain had become so bad that he had missed a few days at work and had
cancelled an outing with his wife and friends to a popular camping spot because he was afraid
he would have another “attack”.

Dr. Smith saw Martin and performed a thorough physical exam and a detailed history of the
entire course of Martin’s symptoms. Dr. Smith asked Martin about unrelated symptoms, and
ordered some laboratory tests to evaluate for autoimmune disorders and check his overall
health, which all came back very normal. Dr. Smith phoned Martin and asked him to keep a
log of his symptoms and anything that was related to bringing them in, and after reviewing
the log together at their next appointment, Dr. Smith and Martin could not identify any other
clues as to what was happening.

Nevertheless, Martin seemed to be preoccupied with these symptoms, and Dr. Smith noted
how debilitating they were to Martin. Dr. Smith was able to reflect on just how often Martin
was fearful of the onset of the symptoms, and noted that Martin’s wife felt like she’d lost her
husband.

As we can see, the same cause and the most common one in both disorder including Anxiety,
stressful event, and depression. According to a study published by the International Journal
of Epidemiology in february 2019 shows that those from the millennial generation are more
prone to depression and self-harming behaviors than they were a decade ago. This comes
even in the wake of continuing reported declines in substance abuse rates and anti-social
behavioral trends.
For as long as anyone can remember, teenagers and young adults have been considered to be
self-centered, emotionally unstable, and irrational. Usually by those older than this age group.
Adults have been known to gripe about how millennials are moody and unable to “leave their
problems at the door,” and that it’s a problem for the workforce’s (and hence, society’s)
stability in the future.

Cases of anxiety have also spiked in the last few years. The Anxiety and Depression
Association of America (ADAA), reports anxiety disorders as the most common mental
illness in the U.S., affecting just over 18 percent of youth annually. The National Institute of
Mental Health (NIMH) indicates that over six million American teens have some sort of
anxiety disorder.

Anxiety has passed depression as the most common reason college students seek mental
health consultation. The number of undergraduate college students claiming “overwhelming”
levels of anxiety due to school work and college life rose from 50% to 62% between 2011
and 2016. It would appear that more pressure than ever before is being placed on kids to not
just succeed, but to outperform everyone else.

BCBS Health Index data indicate the top 10 conditions impacting millennials. The prevalence
rates for nearly all of the top 10 conditions increased from 2014-2017. When compared to the
national population, millennials were more affected by behavioral health conditions. The top
number one of the conditions is major depression with 31% increase in prevalences from
2014 prevalences of 3.8 rates per 100, to 5.0 rates per 100 in 2017.

In conclusion, I think dissociative disorder and somatoform disorder can be found more
common in the millennials. The statistics said itself that the millennials had the most
percentage of depression, anxiety, and stress case in person which can be the main cause of
the reason that they will be more prone to had dissociative disorders or somatoform disorders.

Bibliography

American Psychiatric Assosciation. Patient Story: Somatic Symptom Disorder. Accsessed in

14 november 2020. https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/somatic-symptom-
disorder/patient-story

Millennial Depression is Spiking, According to 2019 “International Journal of Epidemiology”

Study articles. Accessed in 14 november 2020. https://solaramentalhealth.com/depression-
and-anxiety-on-the-rise-among-young-people/

bcbs.com. (2020). Let’s talk about mental health and millennials. Accessed in 14 November
2020. https://www.bcbs.com/smarter-better-healthcare/article/lets-talk-about-mental-health-
and-millennials

Kring, A. M., Davison, G. C., Neale, J. M., & Johnson, S. L. (2007). Abnormal psychology.
John Wiley & Sons Inc.

Sussana, S. November 15, 2016. There's a Startling Increase in Major Depression Among
Teens in the U.S. TIME News.