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Somatic symptom disorder (SSD) is a debilitating disorder that significantly diminishes quality of life and causes psychological distress such as anxiety and depression. The paper explored the efficiency of the eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy in SSD. The current investigation is a clinical trial investigating the effectiveness of eye movement desensitization (EMDR) therapy in the treatment of 31 first-diagnosed SSD patients in comparison to age, education and marital status matched 31-first-diagnosed SSD patients who received duloxetine over a 6-week course of treatment. Somatization subscale of the Symptom Checklist-Revised 90 (SCL-90), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) were administered to the participants. EMDR group showed enhanced improvement relative to baseline after 6 weeks of treatment compared to duloxetine group. We concluded that EMDR appears to be a highly promising therapy and should be considered among the first-line interventions in the treatment of SSD.

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Patients with functional neurological symptom disorder (FND) have many diverse symptoms including psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES), positive movements such as tremor, dystonia, or gait abnormalities, loss of motor function such as leg or arm paresis, and loss of sensory functions, such as blindness, deafness, or loss of feeling in the limbs. Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a therapy method that includes some techniques arising from psychodynamic, cognitive, and behavioral approaches. EMDR is known as a proven psychotherapeutic approach in post-traumatic stress disorder, but there are also numerous studies reporting its efficacy in other psychiatric disorders and trauma-associated symptoms, in patients with comorbid psychiatric disorders. This article presents the outcome of EMDR treatment of two patients’ cases, a 13-year-old female and a 16-year-old male, who were diagnosed as FND with PNES, according to the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria. In both cases, there was a significant decrease in Adolescent Dissociative Experiences Scale scores and no pseudo seizures were found, even at the sixth-month follow-up visits. These case studies suggest that EMDR can be an effective method in the long-term treatment of FND with PNES and a useful alternative to other treatment methods.