Some Normal Odor Effects and Associations of Psychoanalytic Significance

Summary: Data from 254 distinguished living persons show that the sense of smell still occupies a prominent place in normal mental dynamics and has not fallen into the state of disuse imagined by many. The relative rarity of olfactory abnormalities should be looked upon as reflecting the evolutionary dictum that “the oldest neurologically is the most stable.” The common occurrence of psychoanalytic mechanisms reported in the paper show the active rôle of the sense of smell in human mental life, frequently approaching the borderline without passing over the line into the abnormal. Closer study of the patient's odor associations, preference, and experiences than is customary in analytic work would both speed up the analysis and give a better abreaction and more satisfactory analysis.

The corporeal affiliations of odors is a matter of common observation, but their rôle in the deeper psychic life of normal persons is generally overlooked. The sexual significance of the sense of smell has long since been pointed out by Havelock Ellis, Krafft-Ebing, and others. More recently, Daly and White1 and Brill have presented general reviews of knowledge in this field and analyses of cases in which the sense of smell played a prominent part.2

In a recent study of 254 distinguished living persons the Colgate laboratory obtained from them extended accounts of odor associations and effects in their personal experience. The data show clearly that the sense of smell is not a deteriorated sense, that it is powerful in reviving memories—especially remote memories, and that approximately one out of ten of our subjects possessed remarkable acuity in identifying persons and places by the odor.

Of most significance to the psychoanalyst in these data are the emotional drives released by certain odors and the transparent symbolism in many of the odor-linked memories and experiences of these accomplished and apparently non-psychotic persons.