Working With Smells and Fragrances - An Emotion Activating Technique from Psychodrama

The olfactory nerve is a unique sensory nerve. Unlike all other cranial nerves, it goes directly to the diencephalon and the emotional brain without bridging to a second neuron.

Fragrances and smells can evoke memories and activate feelings in a strong and sometimes surprising  way. We all know how certain smells can take us back in time. The writer Marcel Proust created ten volumes of "In Search of Lost Time" from just the scent of a pastry dipped in tea.

Liat Ravon is an internationally active Danish psychodrama therapist. The topic of her master's thesis "The Smell of Psychodrama" has aroused increasing interest: She has developed a warming-up technique from working with smells, which, like an echo sounder, brings us into direct contact with forgotten or preconscious experiences from the past and childhood . This olfactory «affect bridge» can be used in many ways to further activate resources and/or actualize conflicts and is therefore also interesting for Schema Therapy.

In this workshop she will present the technique and the possibilities to use smells to activate emotions for self-awareness and therapy in a psychodrama frame.

In terms of Schema Therapy, this technique primarily belongs to the activation of positive schemas and the healthy adult in his function as director and biographer of life.

The participants can look forward to an interactive "in person" workshop with many exercises and elements of self-awareness.