Bilateral Stimulation - What It Is & How It’s Used in EMDR Therapy
In recent years, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy has become more popular due to its ability to treat trauma, anxiety and other mental health issues. Bilateral stimulation (BLS) is one integral aspect of EMDR. Bilateral stimulation helps clients work through their traumatic memories in a way that leads to healing.
You may be familiar with BLS without knowing what it was even called. For example, when you go for a run or when you are playing the drums with your hands, that’s bilateral stimulation. But what exactly is it and how does it play such a profound role in EMDR therapy and in the healing of trauma?
What Is Bilateral Stimulation?
Bilateral stimulation is when something is repeated in an alternating pattern on each side of your body. This in turn alternates the activation of your left and right sides of the brain. This can be achieved in a variety of ways, but the three most common ones that are used specifically in EMDR therapy are as follows.
Eye movements: Moving the eyes from side to side, guided by a therapist’s finger or another object.
Tactile stimulation: Alternating taps on your shoulders, hands or knees.
Auditory stimulation: Listening to sounds that switch between your right and left ears through headphones
Although all three of these sound simple, they have a profound effect on your brain. The alternating left-right pattern mirrors the brain’s natural process during REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep. This sleep stage helps us process our emotions and our memories. Bilateral stimulation mimics REM sleep and can help us process unresolved memories and traumas in a similar way.
How Bilateral Stimulation Works in EMDR Therapy
EMDR therapy is an approach to processing trauma and distressing memories that does not rely on discussing the trauma. This is primarily what makes EMDR so much different than traditional counseling sessions. EMDR instead focuses on facilitating the brain's natural ability to heal.
In EMDR therapy, your therapist will guide you through several different phases. Bilateral stimulation is the core component of the “desensitization” phase. As you concentrate on a particular memory, your therapist will guide you through whichever bilateral stimulation that’s been decided upon.
While engaging in bilateral stimulation, you might notice that the traumatic memory feels less intense, as if you’re observing it from a distance. The brain begins to reprocess the memory, transforming it from such a horrible and jarring memory into a calmer recollection that no longer triggers such a strong emotion. Over several sessions, painful memories often lose their emotional grip on you, allowing you to move forward with peace.
Why Does Bilateral Stimulation Work?
There are many hypotheses behind why bilateral stimulation works so well for reprocessing and healing from trauma. By engaging both brain hemispheres through eye movements, sounds, or tapping, BLS may help move "stuck" memories from emotional areas of the brain to more adaptive, cognitive regions where they can be processed. This stimulation resembles the brain’s natural process during REM sleep, a stage associated with memory integration, where emotions and experiences are sorted, often reducing their intensity.
It is also theorized that BLS may also reduce activity in the amygdala, the brain’s "fear center," which can lessen the emotional charge tied to painful memories, making it easier to revisit them without feeling overwhelmed.
The attention required to follow BLS movements or sounds requires a lot of focus. This grounds you in the moment while still remembering the distressing memory. This allows the brain to manage the memory with less focus on its emotional intensity. This "dual attention" effect softens the impact of your upsetting memories, allowing them to be reprocessed with less emotional weight.
Over multiple sessions, BLS facilitates cognitive restructuring, where clients begin to associate new, positive thoughts with previously distressing memories. This shift, supported by newly formed neural pathways, helps reframe past experiences with healthier perspectives, reducing their emotional grip. Although it’s not known exactly which of these makes bilateral stimulation so successful, what we do know is that it is effective. Bilateral stimulation is an incredibly powerful tool at reducing the intensity of traumatic memories and aiding emotional recovery.
Begin EMDR Therapy in Burr Ridge / Willowbrook, Illinois
Our EMDR therapists at RelationshipStore use bilateral stimulation during EMDR therapy sessions. If you are interested in getting professional help with PTSD, processing trauma, anxiety, or want to know if EMDR is a good fit for you, please text or call us at (630) 974-6777 or fill out our contact form here.
RelationshipStore’s EMDR therapists offer both in-person and online counseling options for residents of Illinois.
Our practice is located at 241 S Frontage Rd #36, Burr Ridge, IL 60527.