Sound therapy with sources cited — even when the evidence is thin.
A multi-track audio engine for clinical sessions. Binaural beats, isochronic tones, pure tones, and pink and white noise — each one labeled with its study status and citations, so you know exactly what you’re offering a client.
What’s inside
Binaural beats
Left ear hears the carrier; right ear hears the carrier plus the beat frequency. Delta (2 Hz), theta (4–8 Hz), alpha (10 Hz) and gamma (40 Hz) — pick the beat rate your work calls for.
Isochronic tones
Single-tone pulses gated at the beat frequency. Easier to perceive than binaural beats and useful for clients without headphones.
Pure tones (solfeggio)
Single-frequency continuous tones — the solfeggio set (396, 417, 528, 639, 741, 852, 963 Hz) plus 432 and 440 Hz tuning tones, each adjustable ±15% around its base pitch. Use as a steady acoustic anchor.
Pink + white noise
Generated in-browser, not sampled — no audio asset to download, no loop seam. Masking for distractible environments or for ambient stillness between phases.
Moves with the ball
In a session, the sound you pick moves with the visual target: with headphones, ear to ear; on speakers, side to side. The client picks headphones or speakers on their screen. On the standalone soundboard, tracks play centred.
The wellness-audio market sells confidence. Clinicians need calibration.
Most binaural-beat and solfeggio products make sweeping promises about anxiety, focus, sleep, even chronic conditions. The peer- reviewed literature behind those claims is, in many cases, thin or absent. Psy180 doesn’t sell you on the sound — it labels each track with its study status (early evidence, mixed, well- supported), the relevant citations, and a one-line summary you can read to a client. The labeling is built into the data layer, not bolted on as marketing.
Every sound, with the evidence attached.
Real cards, straight from the in-app library — one well-studied track next to one flagged as contradicted. The links work; click through.
Theta 6 Hz Binaural Beat
Binaural Beat · Meditation · Deep Relaxation
Most-studied theta binaural beat. One EEG study reported cortex-wide theta activity after 10 minutes at a 250 Hz carrier, resembling a meditative pattern (Jirakittayakorn & Wongsawat, Frontiers in Neuroscience 2017, doi:10.3389/fnins.2017.00365). Requires headphones.
963 Hz — 'God Frequency'
Solfeggio · Traditional: Crown Activation
Marketed as 'pineal gland activation.' No scientific mechanism exists for audible sound to activate the pineal gland. Claim is neuroscientifically implausible and categorized as pseudoscience.
Plus your own sources — kept to yourself
Attach your own studies, articles, or notes to any track, right from your profile. They're private to your account, never reviewed by Psy180, and never touch the shared evidence ratings — so if someone else adds shaky research, it stays in their world, not yours.
Psy180 curates the platform citations by reading the literature for each track type — we don't sell you on a sound, we label it. The full library lives inside the app.
What the research supports — and what it doesn’t
Every study below is linked to its PubMed record, with the limitation that has to be read alongside the finding. These are studies of clinician-delivered interventions and laboratory paradigms — not of Psy180. We cite them so you can calibrate what sound can and can’t do in a session; we do not borrow their results.
Alternating (left–right) auditory and tactile stimulation
The closest literature to what Psy180’s bilateral audio does. Small studies, mixed results, and one head-to-head comparison that did not favour tones.
Servan-Schreiber et al., 2006 — Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics PMID 16899965 ↗
Finding · Pilot randomized study, 21 adults with single-event PTSD: alternating, simultaneous-bilateral, and continuous tones-plus-vibration all reduced distress across three sessions; alternating stimulation reduced it faster on newly targeted memories.
Caveat · n = 21, pilot, single-event trauma only. The authors describe much of the effect as independent of stimulation type and frame alternation as a hypothesis for future studies — not evidence that alternation is required.
van den Hout et al., 2012 — Behaviour Research and Therapy PMID 22440458 ↗
Finding · 12 PTSD patients, within-subject comparison of recall only, recall with alternating tones, and recall with eye movements: eye movements outperformed tones, and it remained unclear whether tones added anything over recall alone.
Caveat · The most important result on this page. The authors call substituting tones for eye movements premature. Psy180 offers audio as a companion to, or an accessibility alternative for, visual stimulation — not as an established equivalent.
Amano & Toichi, 2016 — PLoS ONE PMID 27732592 ↗
Finding · 15 healthy volunteers, resource installation with and without alternating tactile stimulation: with stimulation, greater self-reported relaxation and distinct prefrontal and temporal activity on near-infrared spectroscopy.
Caveat · Healthy volunteers, pleasant memories, tactile rather than auditory stimulation, no clinical outcome measured. Supports a calming or resourcing use at most; it says nothing about trauma processing.
Lee & Cuijpers, 2013 — Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry PMID 23266601 ↗
Finding · Meta-analysis of 26 studies (849 participants): eye movements added a moderate effect within treatment (d = 0.41) and a large one in laboratory studies (d = 0.74), largest on image vividness.
Caveat · This is about eye movements, not tones. The authors note a previous meta-analysis found no significant eye-movement effect — the field disagrees with itself. It does not generalize to audio.
Landin-Romero et al., 2018 — Frontiers in Psychology PMID 30166975 ↗
Finding · Systematic review of 87 studies on how EMDR works: reasonable empirical support for the working-memory account and for physiological changes that accompany successful therapy.
Caveat · The authors describe mechanism research as “still in its infancy” and note ongoing controversy about whether bilateral stimulation is an active component of the therapy at all.
Binaural beats — a different phenomenon
Two steady tones, one per ear, producing a perceived beat. Not alternating stimulation. Meta-analyses find small-to-medium effects that depend heavily on frequency, timing, and dose, mostly in non-clinical samples.
Garcia-Argibay, Santed & Reales, 2019 — Psychological Research PMID 30073406 ↗
Finding · Meta-analysis of 22 studies (35 effect sizes): a medium overall effect (g = 0.45) on cognition, anxiety, and pain perception; exposure before a task outperformed exposure during it, and longer exposure was better.
Caveat · Effect size — and even direction — depend on the frequency used, exposure time, and timing. Mostly non-clinical samples and laboratory outcomes. Not a general-purpose claim.
Basu & Banerjee, 2023 — Psychological Research PMID 35842538 ↗
Finding · Meta-analysis of 15 studies (31 effect sizes): a medium effect (g = 0.40) of binaural beats on memory and attention.
Caveat · The authors’ own systematic review reports conflicting results, especially for theta and beta frequencies, and calls for more robust designs. Read as “near-moderate and mixed”, never “proven”.
Fatima et al., 2026 — EXPLORE PMID 42349368 ↗
Finding · Systematic review and meta-analysis of 13 randomized trials (630 participants) of theta binaural beats: pooled pain reduction (SMD −0.53), with anxiety effects mainly in procedural and chronic-pain settings.
Caveat · The evidence was graded low certainty; anxiety and cognition outcomes could not be pooled; only four trials fed the pain estimate. The right word is “preliminary”.
Music listening for stress and anxiety
The strongest evidence base on this page — and the least specific to trauma work. Supports grounding and regulation use, not processing.
de Witte et al., 2020 — Health Psychology Review PMID 31167611 ↗
Finding · Systematic review and two meta-analyses, 104 randomized trials (9,617 participants): music interventions reduced stress on physiological (d ≈ 0.38) and psychological (d ≈ 0.55) outcomes.
Caveat · Music listening for general stress — not trauma processing, not bilateral, not therapist-guided memory work. An honest basis for grounding and regulation, and nothing more.
Bradt, Dileo & Shim, 2013 — Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews PMID 23740695 ↗
Finding · 26 trials (2,051 patients) of pre-recorded music listening for preoperative anxiety: anxiety scores about 5.7 points lower than standard care; no adverse effects identified.
Caveat · Surgical patients, not a psychotherapy population, and most trials were at high risk of bias from lack of blinding — the authors ask that the results be interpreted with caution.
Aalbers et al., 2017 — Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews PMID 29144545 ↗
Finding · 9 studies (421 participants): music therapy added to usual care improved clinician- and patient-rated depression (moderate-quality evidence) with no excess adverse events.
Caveat · “Music therapy” here means a trained music therapist delivering a tailored therapeutic process. An app playing audio is not music therapy, and Psy180 does not claim this evidence.
“Sound healing” more broadly
Where the evidence is thin and some proposed mechanisms are not scientifically established. Listed so the line between the groups above and the wellness market stays visible.
Goldsby et al., 2017 — Journal of Evidence-Based Complementary & Alternative Medicine PMID 27694559 ↗
Finding · 62 participants reported less tension, anger, fatigue, and depressed mood after a singing-bowl sound meditation.
Caveat · Observational, no control group, no randomization, pre/post self-report only. It cannot support a causal claim.
Seetharaman, Avhad & Rane, 2024 — EXPLORE PMID 37532602 ↗
Finding · Narrative overview of singing-bowl studies reporting reduced negative affect and changes in blood pressure, heart rate, and respiration.
Caveat · The review states the mechanisms are not understood and floats explanations — including an “energy field” around the body — that are not scientifically established. Cited here only to mark where the evidence stops.
- · Delivers an audio stimulus under the clinician’s control — in a session it moves with the visual (ear to ear on headphones, side to side on speakers); on the standalone soundboard it plays centred.
- · Treats audio as a companion to, or an accessibility alternative for, eye movements. Head-to-head evidence favours eye movements; we say so.
- · Labels binaural beats and alternating stimulation separately. They are different phenomena.
- · Makes no claim of brainwave entrainment, hemispheric synchronization, or any energy-field mechanism.
- · Is a tool for licensed clinicians, not a medical device, not music therapy, and not a treatment. The clinician provides the treatment.
Where sound on Psy180 is going
Audio-based therapy is an expanding field, and Psy180 intends to serve it properly — not by bolting on tracks, but by building with the clinicians who practice it. Here is what is in motion.
A larger library, evidence attached
More tracks — including alternating tones and clicks with adjustable rate and ramp — each shipped with its study status and primary-source links.
An audio-first session
A more polished session experience built around sound: for clients who can’t watch a screen, for accessibility, or because that is how you work.
Guided audio presets, shaped with you
Structured presets for timing, ramps, and track order — never clinical protocols — designed with practitioners who use sound in their sessions.
Common questions
Do binaural beats actually work?Read more ↓Close ↑
The evidence is mixed. Some controlled studies show small, transient effects on subjective mood and focus; others find no reliable brainwave entrainment. Psy180 labels every track with its study status and links to the citations — including when the evidence is thin — so clinicians can decide what to use and what to disclose.
Can I play sounds and the bilateral ball at the same time?Read more ↓Close ↑
Yes. Pick a library track or one of the built-in tones as the session sound and it moves with the ball — ear to ear on headphones, side to side on speakers. Outside a session, the standalone soundboard plays tracks centred.
Does this need headphones?Read more ↓Close ↑
On the standalone soundboard, binaural beats need headphones — the L/R frequency difference must reach each ear separately. In a session with headphones, the sound plays in one ear at a time as it follows the ball, so a binaural track is heard as a single pulsing tone (a monaural beat) rather than a binaural one. Isochronic tones, pure tones, and noise tracks work on speakers; the sound's movement with the ball is clearest on headphones but audible without.
Can clients upload their own sounds?Read more ↓Close ↑
Custom audio uploads are coming soon. Clients connect to the session and hear whatever the therapist is playing — they don’t need their own account to participate.
Are the evidence labels yours or someone else’s?Read more ↓Close ↑
Psy180 curates them by reading the published literature for each track type. Where a credentialed body has issued guidance, we cite it. Where the evidence is preliminary or contested, we say so — that honest posture is the whole point of the labeling system.
Is bilateral audio a substitute for eye movements?Read more ↓Close ↑
Not on current evidence. The one head-to-head comparison in PTSD patients (van den Hout et al., 2012) found eye movements outperformed alternating tones, and its authors called substituting tones for eye movements premature. Psy180 offers audio as a companion to the visual stimulus, or as an accessibility alternative when a client can’t watch a screen — not as an established equivalent. The research section on this page lists the studies and their limits.
Is Psy180 adding more sound features?Read more ↓Close ↑
Yes. Sound is an active area of development: a larger library with every track’s evidence attached, a more polished audio-first session, and guided audio presets (timing, ramps, track order — never clinical protocols) shaped with clinicians who practice audio-based therapy. If that’s you, we want your guidance — see the roadmap and the contact page.
Three built-in tones, a preview of every track, and a BAA — free. The full library opens on the paid plan and in the 21-day trial.
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