A word of caution: the information given here is not intended as medical advice. We do not advise you to follow any of these "treatments" yourself. We advise you to obtain a full medical diagnosis and discuss your treatment plan with your doctor. If you choose to use aromatherapy as part of your treatment, please seek out the help of a trained aromatherapist first.

Case Study - Acute Depression

by Michel Vanhove

A young women came to me begging to give her something urgent for her friend who had acute depression....they had to get married the next day, Friday.

He is 32 years old, musician. They have been living together for 3 years, having sometimes a difficult relationship, also due to the fact that he had depressions every 3 months and was unreachable, emotionally speaking. She's pregnant and they agreed to marry. Some days before, he was caught by a sudden panic attack.

I gave her origanum majorana and ocimum basilicum, tropical methyl chavicol type.

A special synergy consisting of some pine and fir trees I love a lot:

abies alba Miller

abies balsamea

picea mariana

pinus sylvestris

pseudotsuga canadensis

pinus austriaca

pinus pinaster

with cupressus sempervirens Provence (very green note, made only with the fresh leaves)

and melaleuca minor (cajeput)

The same evening she gave him a tea of St John's Wort, a complex of valerian (with humulus lupus, passiflora incarnata etc...) with 1 drop of both essential oils.

Later he took a relaxing bath with some lavender added. Then she gave him a body massage with a relax blend I made (roman chamomile, neroli, lavender, green mandarin), blended with jojoba oil as a carrier. I advised her not to massage the belly nor the feet. She also gave a face massage. It worked: he felt asleep immediately and both slept well that night.

Friday morning she gave again 50 drops of the valerian complex with 1 drop of both essential oils.

Just before the guests came and the wedding began, he took some again.

The wedding was ok and he followed my advice of sniffing on my pine synergy every time he felt uncertain. People were wondering about it and he replied he needed it for his respiration problems... He felt quite comforted by the synergy.

The wedding day was ok, nobody knew what happened the days before.

He needed some days of rest after the wedding, having a lot of emotions to free, but things move in the good direction actually. The women just came to tell me her story.

Michel Vanhove is an aromatherapist and teacher in Belgium. He has a shop, gives lectures and classes and has a mail-order business supplying essential oils, Nature Helps

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