Can essential oils replace certain drugs used in psychiatry?

Ioana Farcas followed the internship training in hospital pharmacy (4 years) followed by 4 years of employment in research and development, at Sanofi Aventis (France).
From 2008, she has been working as hospital chemist in different hospitals located in Paris city area. In her last hospital setting where she spent 8 years, specializing in psychiatry, she introduced essential oils into the establishment’s project, concerning non-pharmacological therapies.
Both patients and caregiver users report that essential oils help in states of anxiety and restlessness, and an initial study demonstrates an improvement in both anxiety and sleep scales for caregivers. 
Ioana is currently involved in the implementation of a clinical study “Influence of olfactory essential oils on the consumption of benzodiazepines and related “as needed” prescriptions in a patient population in outpatient psychiatry” (ongoing).

In 2018 she received a Gattefossé Foundation Fellowship for a project regarding the implementation of aromatherapy inside hospitals.