Who Said Aromatherapy Lacks Healing Effects?

Nelson Handel obviously conducted his research with a preconceived notion of what aromatherapy is and is not (“The Sweet Smell of Excess,” June 15). Any product that has synthetic chemical constituents such as Palmolive does is not aromatherapy. If Handel wants true scientific findings, have him attend the 34th International Symposium on Essential Oils in the fall, where scientists and researchers from around the world will study and prove the healing effects of essential oils.

Most essential oils are antibiotic, antiseptic and anti-inflammatory. The pharmaceutical industry in particular has a vested interest in not making aromatherapy valid. Essential oils are made from plants. Plant chemical constituents change from year to year. Plants cannot be replicated or patented. No patent means no market control and less profit.

Sure, consumer packaged goods are jumping on the marketing bandwagon of aromatherapy, but that does not mean that the true art itself is invalid. Handel’s article does a huge injustice to all of the fine work done by the world’s renowned aromatherapists. He only interviewed those on the fringe, with a preconceived notion against aromatherapy to begin with.

Victoria Linssen

Via the Internet

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Many years ago, while serving an internship as a social work case manager in North Carolina, I had a client who had been severely depressed for two years, since her aged mother’s death. One day I managed to get her out of the house and we went to a botanic garden. We smelled the flowers and the herbs and sat in the sunshine. I will never forget the way this woman was visibly transformed by the odors of the plants, especially the rosemary. Her face lit up; I had never seen her smile before. She stood up straight and her voice became deeper and louder. She expressed hope about the future and a desire to return to the garden regularly. We did, and though she still struggled emotionally for many months, her depression began to lift, and I never heard her talk about suicide again.

Call me naive or irresponsible, but no peer-reviewed journal, no amount of supposed empirical evidence and no level of skepticism from highly placed scientific types will ever change my belief that aromatherapy can and does help some people. Why this and the prevalence of other alternative or complementary treatments is so threatening to the established medical community is the real story your magazine should cover.

Dan Brezenoff

Long Beach