Getting Creative with bls
Bilateral Stimulation and dual awareness, two terms that get thrown around the EMDR community regularly. So why don’t we ever dive deeper into an understanding of their importance or even more-so, the creativity that can be found there? We are taught the basics of dual awareness, having one foot firmly planted in the present and one in the past (or future). We know that the bls is meant to cross the corpus colosseum and move our clients from hemisphere to hemisphere. We know the basic mechanics at work but we are not often given space to begin to get creative with those key forms of bilateral. We work to keep our clients safe and in the movement with us, attuning to their sense of safety. We work to provide a secure space to do the processing while keeping them grounded in reality.
“I am right here with you”
“Lets take a good breath together”
“Can we be curious, about what that feels like in your body”
We attune and then refer to our training manuals and the basics of BLS: eye movements, tapping/kinesthetic and auditory forms of stimulation.
Clinicians worldwide have their preferences and perspectives when it comes to BLS. There is a lot of research to know which form of BLS can be beneficial. Ultimately they all work within the nervous system, so how can we get creative with the form of BLS we choose to utilize? Some of us use the tappers/buzzers and they work phenomenally. Our clients hold them in our hands or the kiddos we work with put them in their socks, therefore BLS is very straightforward with the click of a button. Which begs the question, what do we turn to when that isn’t an option?
Get creative with the forms of bls that show up in your space both physically and virtually
Some of our clients won’t like the tactile sensations, or will have a hard time following a light or finger with their eyes; some won’t like to be touched physically for tapping; they may have a limitation as to what is comfortable from their own histories/ traumas. I’ve worked with clients of all ages who have had limitations with the forms of bilateral that they are comfortable engaging with in session. All of this is important to take into consideration when we run through the possibilities. Just as though the client has the autonomy to pick the form, we have the autonomy to change it as needed, we can change BLS at any time for any reason. Someone may be stuck or looping, they may be getting to close to being bounced out of their window of tolerance or they may not like the form in front of them- no matter what is going on we have so much opportunity to use bls to our advantage as EMDR therapists.
So let’s just get creative with it, here’s a breakdown of some of our favorite forms of BLS:
Tappers
Eye movements/light bar
Painting/drawing
Throw a ball back and forth
Physical movement: dancing, walking, marching, hopping, running, stretching
Balloon: keeping up in the air
Music: drumming
Makeup brush/brushes: tactile
Stomping
Petting: animal assistance
Games: back and forth
Puppets/helpers
Apps: https://www.bilateralstimulation.io/
We use the basics, the core of EMDR, but we are allowed to get creative with the form of BLS that will work best for the person in front of us. Especially with kiddos and neurodivergent populations. Oftentimes when working with neurodivergent clients we have to change the BLS throughout the process and adjust to what makes sense for them. Changing BLS can be a really powerful interweave for any of our clients!
This month we encourage you to think outside the box, to step out of just your go to form of BLS.
See what else could possibly work
for the person sitting in front of you.
