LAUSR

Consider, for example, a comparison between the mask and the veil (niqab) used by some women in Middle Eastern culture. If we consider them simply as different ways of covering the face, albeit for different reasons, health in the pandemic era and religious in the Eastern world, we can see them not exclusively as a barrier to communication but also as an opportunity. We can perhaps learn effective communication skills from those who habitually interact with their faces partially hidden. In my clinical practice as a psychologist in an Italian Oncological Department with training in psycho-body psychotherapy, I have observed how in the oncology field the use of the mask has disrupted the intimacy of the care relationship. Personally, I feel the lack of empathic support given by contact (e.g., the possibility of shaking hands) and facial expressions (e.g., smiling)1, which are partially visible in addition, discussion with oncologists revealed the need to maintain an empathic relationship with patients, despite the communication barriers of physical distancing and mask use. As cancer patients are at higher risk of infection than the healthy population, due to their immunodepressed state, protective devices such as the face mask are not new in oncology. In our oncology department, no onco-hematologic diseases are treated that involve isolation and the use in daily practice of protective devices, however in situations of neutropenia, the question of masked communication arises.