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The situation of uncertainty several people faced in Italy due to the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic suggested this contribution concerning the potential outcomes in some safety areas of the primary needs of the individual: safety and security needs, love and belonging needs, esteem, and self-actualization. When uncertainty features one or more of them, the risk of health outcomes increases, specifically with respect to mental health. This contribution compares the experience of the severe earthquake that hit Emilia-Romagna region (North Italy) in May 2012 and the epidemic of CoViD-19 officially started in Italy in February 2020. Both experiences were lived by the authors, as citizens and mental health professionals. The considerations presented stemmed out from the clinical experience and are articulated around some key words: surprise, length, places, society, work, welfare, feelings, economics. Similarities and differences are presented, suggesting that new therapeutic devices are necessary, to hold and treat patients during this specific epidemic, as well as during future ones. Up to the moment we have just been able to chase the shadow, by integrating medieval systems (quarantine) and hyper-technological systems (i.e., the most advanced resuscitation techniques).

The distinction between physiological and dysfunctional emotions in end-of-life care may be hard, for a twofold reason: on the one hand, the patient as a subject, with specific clinical features, personality, system of values; on the other hand, the clinical judgment by involved health professionals, particularly their specific cut-offs in discrimination between normal suffering and psychopathology. Both excessive/untimely medicalization and underestimation of medical conditions such as anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, and insomnia may be a risk while dealing with end-of-life patients. Prompt, reliable psychiatric diagnosing contributes significantly to the major goal of dignity in death. The aims of a psychiatric consultation for patients with end-stage diseases should be: controlling concomitant psychiatric symptoms, managing pain and physical symptoms, assisting patient and relatives in the crisis-management, mediating conflicts between patient, family and ward personnel, and planning advocacy.

In this experiment, two rows of four boxes, one above and the other below the fixation point, were displayed on a computer monitor. A cognitive numeric cue indicated one of the four external boxes, where the attention was to be directed. Stimuli, however, could occur in any of the eight boxes. The subject was instructed to respond to the imperative stimulus as fast as possible, regardless of its location. Four time intervals between cue and stimulus presentation (SOAs) were employed in order to disclose the route along which attention is moved. With the shortest SOA (100 msec) an indication that attention movements follow the cartesian/orthogonal axes was shown.