The Ethics of Using Essential oils in Clinical Practice with DeeAnna Nagel

[CHRIS McDONALD]

The Holistic Counseling Podcast is part of the Practice of the Practice network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you market and grow your business and yourself. To hear other podcasts like Behind the Bite, Full of Shift and Impact Driven Leader, go to www.practiceofthepractice.com/network.

Welcome to the Holistic Counseling Podcast, where you discover diverse wellness modalities, advice on growing your integrative practice, and grow confidence in being your unique self. I'm your host, Chris McDonald. I'm so glad you're here for the journey.

Welcome to today's episode of the Holistic Counseling Podcast. I'm your host, Chris MacDonald. I'm so excited for today's guest, DeeAnna Nagel, a licensed therapist. We met online a few months ago and I realized how much helpful information she has to share with you about essential oils and the ethics of using them in clinical practice. I've gotten more requests about using essential oils in clinical practice than any other topic. So this comes at a great time. DeeAnna is a former psychotherapist turned aroma therapist and intuitive. She integrates energy healing and intuition as well as chakra balancing and essential oils into her work with others. Her greatest passion is guiding people towards their soul's purpose. She holds several credentials in the healing arts. Welcome to the podcast, DeeAnna.

[DEEANNA NAGEL]

Hi, there. Glad to be here.

[CHRIS]

So before we dive in, can you tell my listeners a little bit more about yourself and your work?

[DEEANNA]

Sure. I'm still licensed as a mental health counselor in New York though I live in Florida. So I don't practice psychotherapy with clients anymore. I do offer clinical supervision, so I still have my hands in the counseling pie, so to speak. Some therapists might know me from my other area of interest, which is telemental health. So I've been teaching telemental health off and on for 20 years, but about probably a decade ago, I just started really migrating toward alternative approaches to my own health and that's how all of this unfolded. So I was introduced to essential oils, maybe seven or eight years ago and I really discovered how they shifted my own life, my own frequency vibration, however you want to say it. So I just sought out to learn more and I became a level one certified aroma therapist, not because I needed to, but because I just wanted the knowledge and I knew I was moving away from client work within psychotherapy.

So I just wanted to know more and see how it would show up in my work. The way it showed up in my work is via intuition. I've always been an intuitive. So I came out of the intuitive closet a decade ago. I've always used my intuition, but I finally was able to say, "Okay, yes, this is part of my skillset." And I discovered that I often sort of had a sense of what people needed in terms of the essential oils without a lot of information. Sometimes not even really, you know I would think, okay, this person needs lavender. Most people know what lavender is for, but for instance, if I didn't know what lavender was for. I still would get this information that this person might benefit from this particular oil.

So that's how I really became intrigued with the process and then I added it to my energy healing and Reiki. I don't do hands-on Reiki. I do hands-off Reiki because of my psychotherapy training. And it just really enhanced everything I did with my clients, particularly face to face. Now I'm all, many of us are only virtual, but I still teach about essential oils within my coaching courses and my therapy courses and I'm getting my doctorate in spiritual direction. I talk about the oils with my cohorts. I just feel like the essential oils are almost like an Oracle or for some people might describe it as a divination tool or the whole concept of anointing yourself with essential oils I think cuts across a lot of faith orientations. So I just have a real reverence for essential oils.

[CHRIS]

I can tell you're passionate.

[DEEANNA]

Yes. So that's a little bit about, in fact my writing right now is, it's called essential soul care, but it really is about the essential oils having been the pivot for me.

[CHRIS]

That was very helpful. No, I think it's great that to think about the personal experience with holistic strategies and how that helped you. I think that really can push a lot of people and therapists into wanting to use it with clients because once you see the positive results, it's like, "Wow, this is amazing. And I want to share this." Especially if you're someone that wants to help people, if you're on that path. I know you mentioned how you integrate the energy healing with intuition, essential oils, all the chakra balancing altogether. So what would a session look like with you? How do you use all those elements together?

[DEEANNA]

Reiki trained, I don't know that I use, there are pure, just as in counseling and psychotherapy, there are purist CBT practitioners, there are purist person-centered, same with Reiki and some of the energy healing modalities. There are purist Reiki masters. I don't call myself that. I just bring in source energy from spirit. I'm just the conduit. It's not me. So the energy flows through me and I make that space ready for that experience. And generally I tell the client before we meet what this is going to be like, what it's going to look like. And I just pull a variety of tools. You know, I sit with the client, I tune in. If I get an immediate sense of the chakra imbalance, I may pull some chakra cards, which are really just writing prompts and I say, "Okay, let's up a root chakra card and see what's going on." And it might be a question related to feeling grounded. And I ask the person to write for five minutes without lifting the pen stream of consciousness, writing. Most of us are familiar with that.

[CHRIS]

Yes. I love them.

[DEEANNA]

And I might introduce an oil at that point, or I might wait and do the exercise again, having inhaled an oil that would be good for the root chakra, very experiential. And it's different every time. Sometimes I get a hit, so to speak, or I'll see an image and I don't always know what the image means. So I just say, I saw this image. Don't know if it resonates, but the oils are an integral part. I've even pulled out three oils without the client being able to see what the name of the oil is and have them just wave the bottle under the nose to see what resonates with them and then we read about the oil. Like, "Okay, so you chose Palmer Rosa. Let's see what that says and see if it resonates." So I just use them, not to overuse the word, but I use them intuitively.

[CHRIS]

Yes, no, that makes sense from what you're saying. And it's almost like seeing what comes up for you and where to go, but I think that has to be some trust in yourself and your spirit and where you're going with your intuition. I know you said you came out of the closet. Was that hard for you before to really trust that intuition?

[DEEANNA]

I always trusted my intuition, but I didn't know that the profession I was in would trust me with my intuition, if that makes sense. So for years I did forensic evaluations, which is very black and white and oftentimes the judge doesn't really care what your opinion is. They just want to know what direction to go with this individual. But I relied on my intuition a lot and then I found the valid and reliable instruments to back up my hunch, like, okay, this is what I think is going on. I'm going to give a valid and reliable instrument and see if that's what's revealed. And most of the time I was spot on, I would not just use my intuition in a setting like that.

[CHRIS]

That wouldn't work.

[DEEANNA]

So during those years only those that knew me very well knew that as we say, I was a little touched in that way. I wouldn't, I wasn't ashamed to talk about it. I just knew it was not accepted. And even my mother said, who is also intuitive, and so is her mother, I remember her saying, "Well, you can't call yourself that. They are going to think you're a witch or something."

[CHRIS]

Well, that stigma still exists, doesn't it?

[DEEANNA]

Right. And then I had to give my mother the lesson that, yes, there are people who call themselves white witches or Wiccans and that's not an evil thing. So there's just so many misconceptions about what being intuitive is. And in fact, we're all born with intuition. It's just like any other sense. We hear well, we see well, we taste well, we smell well, and we can also intuit well. We have a sixth sense. We just have to flex that muscle. So when I came out so to speak, I got some nasty grams.

[CHRIS]

Did you?

[DEEANNA]

Yes, from some people that knew me from my other work. If you look in the literature, intuition in psychology and hello, Carl Young. It's like this whole field started with that idea. So now I'm just out and it is what it is.

[CHRIS]

It is what it is, and just accepting it. And I guess having that faith that people come to you that need your services and that they're going to find you connect with you somehow.

[DEEANNA]

Well, and also I'm very big on, in the day I used to say psychoeducation. Now I'm putting on my educator hat and I want to empower people to be able to not have to come to me to know what oils to use or journal prompts. So this can be a self-help tool.

[CHRIS]

So true. So if a therapist is not an aroma therapist, so I'm guessing that there's not a lot of them out there, so what guidelines could you suggest in using essential oils safely and ethically?

[DEEANNA]

I highly recommend taking a course, even if it's a three hour or five hour course, just anything you can learn. It doesn't have to be a counseling course. You know, there are many aroma therapy schools who teach short courses introduction just to be able to say, because our scope of practice in most states says, if you're going to introduce any thing, any new thing, you must demonstrate that you have training. It's worded differently in every state, but that's the gist. So we could take that to an extreme, which some licensing boards might. So I'm always speaking from a place of due diligence and the extreme would be, well, you shouldn't use positive affirmations with your clients unless you've had training within positive affirmations, which seems a little absurd.

[DEEANNA]

Oh, absolutely.

[CHRIS]

But you see where I'm going with that.

[DEEANNA]

In my mind using essential oils is just another prompt. Think of it as a journal prompt or an affirmation. You wave the bottle under their nose and what comes up for you?

[CHRIS]

So it can be that simple?

[DEEANNA]

It can be that simple. So it can be an olfactory response that guides the client to their next emotion thought revelation, aha moment. But then when we get into application of essential oils during a session, that's a little tricky. When we talk about applying oils, either neat or diluted, neat means it's the pure essential oil and there's no carrier oil with it like Sesame oil or hobo or olive oil. A carrier oil is generally oily. The word essential oil is normal because essential oils generally are not oily. When you're dealing with a client in your office, you don't know what their reaction, have they used oils? What brand did they use? Were they pure essential oils? Are they using fragrances that are chemically laden? So knowing a little bit about what your client is accustomed to, or has done or brand, or whatever educates you about where you might go with the oils.

So if you have a client that says, "No, I use lavender straight. I put it on my wrist straight out of the bottle. I've been doing that for years," then you might offer lavender to somebody to anoint themselves. But what if they've never used oils? Are you going to want them to anoint themselves in the office when you don't know what that reaction would be? There's a risk with them. So I generally tell people who are just wanting to introduce the oils to their clients in a rudimentary way to hold the oil. We're not visual so I can't demonstrate, but to hold the bottle, have the client hold the bottle, a good six inches down from their nose and weigh that back and forth, because it doesn't, you don't have to put it right up to your nose to get the aroma, and just wave it back and forth very slowly from left to right, right to left and let them do that a few times and then sit with it sort of like in a moment of silence or meditation.

[CHRIS]

And is that when you just wait and see what comes up?

[DEEANNA]

Right. Now, if you know what that oil is for and what it can induce, then you might ask some powerful questions or whatevers would be in tune with the oil. For instance, okay, we'll go back to, let's use a citrus, like a lemon or Tangerine. All citrus oils or brightening oils. I've been in the room where we pass a citrus oil around and everybody's face just brightens. It's like sunshine, it lightens the mood. So if that's your intent, then you might purposefully pull out a citrus oil. You know, lavender is also a mood altering oil, and there's plenty of research on lavender for that. Lavender also assists with calm and sleep. But with that said, you have to be very careful about what you tell your clients about what these oils do or don't do. So the best way to describe the do's and don'ts of that is to think of staying above the wellness line.

You don't want to dip into anything that speaks to medicine, a medical diagnosis. I mean, even a diagnosis, as simple as the common cold. You don't want to say, "This oil will help you when you have a cold. Oh, you have a sore throat? Well, this oil will ..." You don't want to go there the best way to talk about the oils, and I teach people that they can either rely on the systems of the body, like the digestive system, the respiratory system, et cetera, or they can rely on the chakra system. But whichever systems you use, you speak to the oils as in this particular really supports the respiratory system. This particular oil supports the balance of your throat chakra, supports.

[CHRIS]

So it's all in the language.

[DEEANNA]

Yes.

[CHRIS]

That makes a lot of sense. So, anything else with that?

[DEEANNA]

I generally tell people who are licensed not to create specific blends for their clients, because that can be seen as prescribing. So if a company has a blend that's already called release or peace and calming or whatever, then the company has already decided what that's for, rather than you coming up with a blend for that purpose.

[CHRIS]

That takes it off of you.

[DEEANNA]

Right

[CHRIS]

And what about using diffusers in the office? Do you think there's any harm with that?

[DEEANNA]

I'll give you my personal opinion. How many waiting rooms have I gone in to the head Glade plugins?

[CHRIS]

Oh Lord. I know.

[DEEANNA]

Which are environmentally hazardous. I have a lung disorders, so when I smell Glade plugin, it's like somebody just constricted me. So I have an opinion about that. If I walk into a candle shop, like a Yankee candle shop, I literally can't breathe. I think the key to using a diffuser is to use it, I don't know, most people use way too much oil in my opinion. You don't need six drops of oil in a diffuser, in a small office. You need one or two drops. Use something for everyday purposes, like a drop or two of lemon. There's nothing controversial about the smell of lemon. Lemon is lemon and there's no, I don't know very many people who are allergic to lemons because that's the other, people say, "Well, I'm allergic to lavender." Well, I personally would not be able to walk through a lavender field, but there is no pollen, which is usually what we're allergic to. There's no pollen in the essential oil. So while I don't want to wave a lavender flower under my nose, I can smell lavender essential oil all day. Not to say there are some people who have reactions to oils, especially topically, which is why it's the whole issue of diluting the oil.

[CHRIS]

Yes. I went to a yoga training recently and the yoga teacher said that she went to a class, a yoga class, you know how they do essential oils sometimes. She went and got it but they put wild orange that wasn't diluted and she had a burn on her forehead from that. Cautionary tale.

[DEEANNA]

Yes. In fact, you'd never want to go in the sun after applying any such a soil, especially bergamot

[CHRIS]

A lot of those precautions too.

[DEEANNA]

Yes. Because you will burn. I mean, I'm not saying you can't walk to your car in the sun. I'm just saying you don't want to slather on your favorite citrus oil and then garden. That would not be a good idea.

[CHRIS]

So is there other safety considerations with essential oils?

[DEEANNA]

Always dilute. If you or your client doesn't know, always dilute for application. Use the inside of your wrist as a test area. You don't want to get the oils in your membrane areas like your eyes. And if you get essential oil in your eye, you don't want to flush with water. You want to flush with a carrier oil. So if I get like peppermint in my eye, I'm going to take a napkin and put some olive oil and then pat my eye with it.

[CHRIS]

That's good to know.

[DEEANNA]

There are some oils that are hotter than others, like peppermint, Oregano, Spearmint. So those are the oils that some people prefer to dilute before applying. I use essential oils that are, they have a line that's food grade. So I can put a drop of essential oil in my tea, but only a drop.

[CHRIS]

A drop, yes.

[DEEANNA]

Some people will even just put the toothpick down in the opening of the bottle and just get the peppermint on the toothpick and then wave it in the tea because it's so strong. Oregano, a lot of people know that if it's food grade, Oregano is good for supporting the immune system, but you don't need to, Oregano is not an oil you want to put in a teaspoon of honey and down the hatch because it will burn. So you have to put it in a veggie cap. So there's just things I, and this is mostly, what I'm talking about right now is for personal use. But anybody that's going to introduce the oils to their clients really need to understand. They need to understand the personal use. And most websites, wherever you're buying your oil, I do not recommend buying from Amazon or eBay or any of that. But most companies that sell the oils have safety precautions. Usually they have a whole page on the website on what to be aware of and what to be careful of. So a lot of it's self-education.

[CHRIS]

So you don't recommend therapists recommending ingesting essential oils unless they know what they're doing?

[DEEANNA]

I would not recommend therapists. No, that's a slippery slope. And again, I'm very conservative even with my own ingestion. Just like I said, with the diffuser, I don't need to have a drop of lemon in my water every day. Essential oils are difficult for the liver to break down. So if I'm ingesting essential oils, I'm ingesting for a specific purpose. Not for maintenance.

[CHRIS]

It is not really preventative if you're ingesting?

[DEEANNA]

Some would argue, yes, but I'm not going there.

[CHRIS]

You're not going there, okay.

[DEEANNA]

I mean, I think that oils can be ingested, but again, just like with the diffusers, I think people are doing way too much of it.

[CHRIS]

So you can do too much with the essential oils.

[DEEANNA]

I think so. I mean, I've not witnessed it personally with myself or anybody I know, but I mean, it's common. You can eat too much broccoli. You can overdo anything, any good thing. An example of that is the rage right now is either green leefies, face, kale, beets, be tops, chard, Swiss chard. So I was on that kick and ended up in the emergency room with kidney stones.

[CHRIS]

Oh my goodness.

[DEEANNA]

Well, I didn't know and I still didn't know. So I'm out of the hospital and I'm doing my good food routine and six months later, I land in the hospital again with kidney stones. My doctor said the kind of kidney stones I was creating were from foods that are high in oxalates, which were all the wrong foods I was eating. And yet, if you pick up any magazine today, everybody says, eat that. So some of this is just learning your own body and having common sense.

[CHRIS]

I had no idea that could happen.

[DEEANNA]

Well, I am here to tell you.

[CHRIS]

Don't do it.

[DEEANNA]

That's why we need to be really careful about saying, oh, this is good for this or this is good for that because everybody is different.

[CHRIS]

You don't know how somebody is going to react to it.

[DEEANNA]

And as a psychotherapist or a coach or a helper or healer of any kind again, the best thing we can do is empower our client to learn their bodies. Whether you're talking about mindful eating or essential oils or suggesting yoga, the client needs to know their body.

[CHRIS]

That self-awareness is so important. So do you think therapists should have something about essential oils in their informed consent?

[DEEANNA]

It depends on how they use it if they are. Okay, we'll talk about the ethics of being a member of a multi-level marketing company.

[CHRIS]

Okay. Yes, let's go there.

[DEEANNA]

There are two or three major central oil companies that are multi-level marketing, which means that somebody sponsors you and you sign up and then you can become a distributor and anybody you sign up, you get a kickback or a commission or a thank you check or whatever you want to call it. And some companies you don't have to do any of that. You can just be a customer. You buy your oils like you buy your paper products from Costco. But if you are distributing the oils under no circumstances, can you be a distributor to your client You cannot sell the oils to your client. That's considered a dual relationship.

[CHRIS]

I think that's so important for therapists to remember

[DEEANNA]

Because you're not only their therapist, but now you're in a position to possibly be there, loosely termed that you could be their boss if they decide to distribute and grow their MLM business. So how does that work? And I've seen a lot of therapists, not intentionally, but they just stepped into that muck and it's, you don't want to go there. So if you use the oils and you use a specific brand that you're endeared to, that's understood, but I tend to just tell my clients, please make sure you're using a quality oil. And if they refer to the oil brand I use, I tell them that they can go straight to the website and get whatever oil they want. And that in the MLM field, that's considered their orphans. Nobody signed them up. They don't have a sponsor number, but the company will assign them somebody. So that way there's no conflict of interest.

[CHRIS]

Because it's not a good idea to say, "Hey, you should buy this brand."

[DEEANNA]

No, let's play that out. So you tell Jane Doe that she really, "Wow, you had a really great experience with this essential oil blend. So you might consider purchasing that, not from me, but from the company." What happens if she does that and has a really bad experience at home? You know, what if she has some sort of ad reactive response that may have nothing to do with the oils, but she says it did have something to do with the oils? Then what?

[CHRIS]

That should come back to you.

[DEEANNA]

When I use a positive affirmation book, I don't say go buy it. I just say, "This is the book I'm using." And our clients are smarter than we think sometimes. If they want that book, they'll say, "What's the name of that book again?"

[CHRIS]

So I guess being very cautious with what you say to your clients about the essential oils and what brands that are out there. But you said to recommend, what did you say again, that a certain grade of essential oils?

[DEEANNA]

Some people refer to it as food grade, which means there's a clause by the FDA that says this oil can be, when it's a pure, essential oil, not dilated with a chemical or et cetera, et cetera, that it can be ingested. So I mean the most common essential oil of course is peppermint. We've been eating peppermint, I have eaten peppermint candy all my life. There is literally a peppermint essential oil in most peppermint candies. So that's considered food grade,

[CHRIS]

But if somebody buys something at big box store or online, they may not know what they're getting.

[DEEANNA]

And unless the bottle says ingestion, do not.

[CHRIS]

Don't ingest it.

[DEEANNA]

No.

[CHRIS]

Oh, okay. Very cautious. I like how you're cautious, though, about all this.

[DEEANNA]

Well, and that's why you don't want to buy even food grades essential oils from Amazon or eBay because they can be adulterated very easily. And that cap goes on looking just like it came out of the original company's factory. Oh, I got this frankincense for like half the price. Yes, no kidding.

[CHRIS]

Yes. I think there's a cautionary tale too, that people want to buy "the cheapest isn't always the best." So you want quality.

[DEEANNA]

Yes. And there's plenty of research on the internet. By research I mean, market research about the different, the varying essential oil brands." You know, I have my favorite, but I have other brands that, you know my favorite doesn't have this particular oil. So I go over here.

[CHRIS]

So I wanted to rewind for a moment and talk about your essential soul care book. So you have, I saw you have a training program as well that goes along with that. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

[DEEANNA]

So my essential soul care book is being written as we speak. It is basically about the seven elements, consider a wellness wheel. Most of us are familiar with wellness wheels. And there's many of them. I'm just one more. Basically I take the seven elements, which is transcendence, intuition, mindset, community, nourishment, creativity, and sanctuary, and those correspond with the crown third eye throat, heart, solar plexus, sacral enrich chakras. And we teach you about the element and the chakra and all of the various ways that you can help balance that certain element in your life or that certain chakra. Some of the ways we talk a little bit about sound, proper use of affirmations, journal prompts. We even have some haiku exercises, poetic expression, how to increase your intuition. It's just sort of, it's not a big, thick, overwhelming book.

It's seven chapters on how to enhance these areas of your life in very simple ways. Like there's enough out there to do the deep dive. We're just trying to really get information out that's palatable for the professional and the lay person. Like here are some really simple tools. You know, we even have word search. So intuition after the chapter, there's a word search with all of the terms to circle the words and the word search. And that seems very elementary, but it is a somatic experience of fun. So you've read, and then you do the exercises and we call it soul play. And then there is some soul work. We talk about the shadow side, dark night of the soul. So what would be the work that would have caused this element or this shocker to be imbalanced? And that's used, that's a journal prompt. And then we have what's called soul study, which are defining moments. Like here's where you might want to go further. If you're resonating with this. And we give key terms. Google is your friend.

And then we have an Oracle deck that goes with it. The book stands alone on its own. The Oracle deck stands alone, but a lot of people will probably buy both. The course is essential soul care practitioner. So that's learning about the Oracle, learning how to use the cards, learning how to implement these elements and these tools with your clients within a backdrop that is psycho-spiritual. So we have a colleague who wrote a book on his method of psycho-spiritual helping for therapists, for coaches, for any person in the helping professions. And that becomes the theoretical orientation and then we provide the tools. So it's a very, it's a combination of my career and my colleagues career, you know, here's what worked for us personally. Here's what we've done with our clients and we've parsed it down. Some really valuable, but simple tools that can be implemented easily.

[CHRIS]

That's the best one. They are simple and easy.

[DEEANNA]

We talk about the corresponding oils. You know, we have this chocolate chart that talks about the oils and the crystals and people can go wherever they want to. They can go down that road, they can go down this road. But I think there's going to be something for everybody, you know tools and nuggets and pearls.

[CHRIS]

Yes. So what is a takeaway you could share today that could help listeners who might be just starting their holistic journey?

[DEEANNA]

Trust your gut. Do your own work, be guided by light. When you don't know what direction to go, ask how you can be of service. Just ask the universe, how can I be of service and you will be shown.

[CHRIS]

Beautiful. I think that's a perfect way to end this episode. So what's the best way for listeners to find you and learn more about you?

[DEEANNA]

My website is havanawellnessstudio.com, not Havana, Kiva, Havana, Florida, and Essential Soul Care is essentialsoul.care.

[CHRIS]

Okay. And I'll put that in the show notes as well so listeners can access that through the website. I want to thank you so much, Deanna, for coming on today.

[DEEANNA]

Oh, thank you. Thank you. Love doing this. Love educating people. I'm easy to find. So if you have a question, just send it to me.

[CHRIS]

Yes. It was so informative. And I want to thank my listeners for tuning in today, but I still need your help. Please subscribe, rate, and review wherever you get the podcast. And this is Chris McDonald sending each one of you much light and love. Until next time, take care.

If you're loving the show, will you rate review and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform? We just started this and that helps other people find this show. Also, if you're feeling uncertain about your modalities and you want to build your confidence to be your unique self, why don't you to join my free email course, Becoming a Holistic Counselor over holisticcounselingpodcast.com. In my Becoming a Holistic Counselor course, you'll get tips for adding integrative care into your practice, what training you need and don't, and the know-how to attract your ideal holistic clients. If this sounds like the direction you are headed, sign up at holisticcounselingpodcast.com.

This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or any other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.