What is Aromatherapy?

By definition of the compound word in Webster’s dictionary, we find the following:

Aroma – 1. A pleasant, often spicy odor, fragrance, as a plant, a wine, cooking, etc. 2. Any smell or odor

Therapy – The treatment of disease or any physical or mental disorder by medical or physical means, usually excluding surgery, sometimes used in compounds (i.e. hydrotherapy).

Therefore, we have the definition of aromatherapy as: The treatment of disease, physical or mental disorder with odor or fragrance that is derived from plants.

Ann Berwick in her book says: “Aromatherapy may be defined as the therapeutic use of the essential oils of aromatic plants.”

Valerie Gennari Cooksley states: “…the skilled and controlled use of essential oils for physical and emotional health and well being.”


Still others have stated it thusly:

Aromatherapy is the art and science of helping living things toward wholeness and balance using the essential oils, which can be extracted from plants

Essential oils are the vital life essence of aromatic plants and flowers in a condensed form. Aromatherapy is the use of essential oils for therapeutic effects

Aromatherapy is the art of using essential oils to enhance our physical, emotional, and spiritual health and well-being.

The nature of aromatherapy is as a holistic treatment, restoring balance to mind and body as well as its specific use in treating a wide range of symptoms.
So, no matter how you word it, it comes out the same. Aromatherapy is a complimentary therapy, to be used alongside more conventional types of medical treatment. It cannot be used for diagnostic work, in this country it is illegal to diagnose without a medical license. There is nowhere in the USA that grants this right through Aromatherapy. There is also nowhere that certification is required to practice aromatherapy, these certifications are granted through the schools themselves, no government as of now has a hand in this process.

How does it Work?

The oils interact with the body's organs and hormones to encourage mental, spiritual and physical change. They work subtly and in small quantities through the skin and the air and should never be put directly into the body in any other way.

Essential oils seem to work in three ways:
If used in baths, compresses, or cosmetics, the very small molecules involved will be absorbed through the skin and into the capillaries that underlie it. Or if used in vaporizers or diffusers, they will be breathed in and absorbed through the respiratory mucosa. Then they are carried by the blood through the body to the different organs they target to exert their physical effects.

They are also absorbed in the nasal mucosa and taken up by scent receptors, which send signals through the nerves to the limbic system. This is the area of the brain where memories associated with strong emotions are stored. It also links directly to the parts of the brain that control many of the automatic functions of the body, such as blood pressure, heart rate, respirations, and intestinal movements. Thus, the essential oils can have a strong effect on the emotions, both through the body functions associated with them and through memory. Go out to the garden and rub the lavender and then the rosemary...see how different these two smells make you feel.

Finally, and here is an area not predisposed to scientific study, the essential oils can have an effect on one's energy bodies ...clearing, stimulating, slowing, or opening according to their own nature. Thus their association with churches, meditation, and spiritual work for millennia. For example, anyone who has been in Catholic churches will remember the scent of frankincense and myrrh. These incenses did more than kill germs that hadn't been identified yet; they help to open people spiritually.

So when we speak of wholeness, we are acknowledging that all beings exist on spiritual, mental, and emotional levels as well as in physical bodies, and that all of these dimensions effect health and well-being. Most holistic practitioners acknowledge that dis-ease may start on the levels of spirit or emotion, blocking energy flows here for some time before the disturbance manifests on the physical level. Since essential oils can exert an effect on all these levels, they may be able to work on some of the causes of dis-ease as well as easing physical discomfort.