Aromatherapy is associated with alternative medicine and for mood enhancement. It is more commonly known as complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Aromatherapy is the use of a liquid substance from a plant otherwise known as essential oils. They are believed to be able to change a person’s mood or their health. Aromatherapy is actually a generic term that can be related to other traditional practices such as spiritual healing and alternative medicine.

These traditions are still currently practiced in the Western part of the globe. The medicinal treatments have been used in the East and the West as well, but it is predominately believed in the West that these oils and substances have healing powers. The term aromatherapy is commonly associated with the smells of the essential oils and how they can affect the mood changes.

The word aromatherapy was first introduced in the 1920’s by a French chemist named René Maurice Gattefosse. He was in constant study of researching how the healing properties of the essential oils do help. He began to do research one day when he was in his lab and his arm went on fire and he had put in into a bucket of liquid to put out the fire and when he noticed the bucket was filled with lavender oil. He experienced a great pain relief and there was minimal scarring.

There are healing powers in these oils but they cannot cure cancer or any life threatening diseases. Any one who is thinking of getting into this type of aromatherapy should know this up front so they aren’t under any assumptions that the therapy can cure a life threatening disease.