The instruments therapy runs on, in one secure workspace

Astral brings the tools you already trust into a single platform: the EMDR protocol with bilateral stimulation and SUDS/VOC tracking, validated screening scales scored as you administer them, guided breathing your patients can keep practising at home, and the records, calendar and permissions a practice runs on.

Every capability described on this page exists in the product today. Nothing here is a roadmap promise.

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Bilateral stimulation and protocol tracking

Run the EMDR protocol inside the platform that holds the record: a therapist-controlled visual stimulus mirrored on your patient’s screen, and target-by-target SUDS and VOC ratings drawn as desensitization curves.

EMDR

Bilateral Stimulation

A therapist-controlled visual stimulus your patient follows on their own screen, in the room or remotely. Speed, pattern, colour and size stay under your control while a timer records each set.

What it includes

Adjust speed from 1 to 10, switch between horizontal, vertical and diagonal patterns, and set the colour and size of the stimulus.
Every adjustment is mirrored on your patient’s screen in real time, on the same device or across the internet.
Share a secure link that needs no login, valid for 24 hours or permanently, at your discretion.
A built-in timer tracks how long the stimulus has been running so sets stay consistent.

Commonly used for

Post-traumatic stress

Clinical rationale

How it works clinically

Bilateral stimulation supplies the dual attention component of EMDR: the patient holds a distressing memory in mind while simultaneously attending to an external rhythmic stimulus. Loading working memory in this way is the mechanism most consistently proposed for the reduction in vividness and emotional charge observed during reprocessing.

Evidence base

EMDR is recommended as a first-line psychological treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder in major international clinical practice guidelines, and controlled trials support delivering the protocol remotely as well as in person.

EMDR Protocol

SUDS & VOC Tracker

Keep every target memory, its negative and positive cognitions and its ratings in one place. SUDS and VOC scores logged across sets are drawn as a live desensitization curve.

What it includes

Create and organise targets with their negative cognition, positive cognition and clinical notes.
Ratings are pre-set for the phase you are in, from baseline through desensitization, installation, body scan, closure and reevaluation.
Dual-line charts plot falling SUDS against rising VOC, with set numbers sequenced automatically.
Move each target through active, completed and archived states with a timestamped history.

Commonly used for

Post-traumatic stress

Clinical rationale

How it works clinically

The EMDR protocol is steered by two ratings: Subjective Units of Disturbance from 0 to 10 for distress, and Validity of Cognition from 1 to 7 for belief in the positive cognition. Recording them set by set is what tells you when desensitization is complete and installation can begin, rather than relying on retrospective impressions.

Evidence base

Structured rating of distress and cognition is a defining procedural element of the manualised protocol, and session-by-session ratings are the accepted way to verify protocol fidelity in EMDR research.

Grounded in clinical science

Astral implements published protocols and instruments as they were validated, rather than approximating them. Here is what that rests on.

EMDR for trauma

International clinical practice guidelines list EMDR among the recommended psychological treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder. Astral implements the protocol’s own instruments — bilateral stimulation, SUDS and VOC — rather than an approximation of them.

Measurement-based care

Measuring symptoms repeatedly during treatment and feeding the results back into clinical decisions improves outcomes compared with treatment as usual, particularly for patients who are not responding. Every assessment in Astral is scored, stored and charted for exactly that purpose.

Validated brief instruments

The PHQ-9, GAD-7 and Short Blessed Test are published instruments with extensive validation and established thresholds. Astral applies their standard scoring and interpretation bands without alteration.

Paced breathing

Slow paced breathing measurably shifts autonomic balance and reduces acute physiological arousal, which is why it is so widely used for grounding and stabilisation. Astral turns it into a shared, synchronized exercise rather than a verbal instruction.

Bring evidence-based tools into your practice

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