Guided Imagery Studio
Guided imagery uses the mind's capacity to create vivid internal experiences — safe places, nurturing figures, containers for distress — that the nervous system responds to as if they were real. When paired with auditory bilateral stimulation (BLS), these positive images become more deeply encoded, strengthening the neural pathways associated with calm, safety, and resilience.
How it works: When you record a script, the studio layers auditory bilateral stimulation underneath your voice — nature sounds or ambient music that alternates between the left and right ears through stereo headphones. This alternating left-right audio panning is the same mechanism used in EMDR eye movements, adapted for sound. Your loved one hears your voice reading the imagery script while the background music gently stimulates both brain hemispheres in turn, helping the positive images encode more deeply.
These scripts come from 101 Trauma-Informed Interventions by Linda Curran. Each one is designed for resource building — Phase 2 of EMDR therapy — not trauma processing. They are safe for supporters and loved ones to use independently.
How to Use
Select a script, put on stereo headphones, press Record, and read the script aloud at a slow, steady pace. The background music automatically alternates between left and right ears — that IS the bilateral stimulation.
The Background Music = Auditory BLS
The music or nature sounds you hear panning left-to-right during recording is auditory bilateral stimulation. It activates both brain hemispheres through alternating sensory input, promoting calming and deeper encoding of positive imagery.
After Recording
Download your recording as a WAV file. Your loved one listens with stereo headphones — they hear your voice with the auditory BLS layered underneath. Each replay reinforces the positive resource. Frequent listening between sessions deepens the effect.
The Container
An imaginal resource that addresses the need to compartmentalize distressing material in order to be present in the here and now. This is not repression or suppression -- it is a technique to allow one to attend to what needs attending to until the necessary resources are available.
Comfortable Place
Imagery designed to facilitate the development and introjection of a comfortable (safe or neutral) place. The objective is to decrease sympathetic activation -- quiet the fight/flight response by activating the parasympathetic nervous system. Subsequent listening provides reinforcement of this positive experience.
Repairenting
Imagery designed to facilitate the development and introjection of an emotionally attuned, mirroring nurturing attachment figure -- a competent inner parent providing unconditional positive regard -- not unlike Winnicott's Good Enough Mother.
Care and Nurture
This imagery is designed to facilitate the development and introjection of a direct experience of care and nurture.
Addiction: Longings/Cravings
Imagery designed to promote distress tolerance, self-empowerment and self-efficacy. Uses a graduated exposure approach -- starting with mild distress and building to stronger cravings.
The Spiritual Entity
This imagery facilitates connection with a spiritual figure who already functions as an attachment figure — a source of unconditional regard, protection, and comfort. For many people, figures such as Jesus, Quan Yin, Tara, God the Father, the Blessed Mother, or other spiritual beings already hold the qualities of the secure base. This script deepens that connection and helps the person borrow and embody the figure's qualities.
The Wise Self
This imagery facilitates connection with a Wise Self or Wise Figure — an aspect of the person that holds perspective, clarity, and calm that the everyday self may not have access to. The script invites the person to identify the figure's specific qualities and practice embodying them. Wisdom, like self-compassion, is a relational capacity — it develops through having been in the presence of wise others and can be accessed through imaginal relationship.
The Compassionate Being
This imagery facilitates the development of a Compassionate Being — an imaginal figure whose defining quality is the capacity to be with suffering without turning away. Self-compassion is not something we generate from nothing — it is an introjected capacity, learned through having been in the presence of compassionate others. This script creates that experience in the imaginal space.
The Protector
This imagery facilitates the development of an internalized Protector — a figure whose defining quality is the capacity and willingness to keep you safe. For people whose early experience included threat without protection, the felt sense of "someone is standing between me and danger" may never have been established. This script creates that experience in the imaginal space and guides the person to borrow and embody the Protector's qualities.