About Face, Masks and Mysteriousness by Dr Elizabeth McCardell, M.Couns., PhD

May 2020

     Wearing a mask can be a lot of fun. Combined with a fancy dress and the donning of a mask, you can set the scene for a night of frivolity, mayhem and a lot of laughter, and this is mostly because you can play being someone else and while only being partly recognizable doing so.

     The wearing of fancy dress and masks in the Carnival of Venice, a yearly celebration that ends with Lent, forty days before Easter, is meant to protect Venetians from anguish and hardship. What a stark irony that this year the whole country of Italy was brought down by the covid-19 epidemic during the carnival. Now everyone there are having to wear masks all the time, as are many across the world.

     What will be the effect on the quality of human interaction when we cannot take off our masks? This question was posed to me by a friend the other day. My response is that the increased mysteriousness of the quality of interactions will likely breed suspicion and paranoia in some people. This is because human interaction depends mostly on how we read the faces of the people we are talking to.

     Jonathan Cole, a neurophysiologist and author, has observed this in his book About Face. A lot of the trust we have in one another comes about through our interest in the facial expressions of others. When someone doesn’t, or can’t, show much expression our tendency is to treat that person as inherently untrustworthy and thus to be ignored or avoided. Interestingly, the one who is being ‘read’ this way, comes to feel blunted emotions of their own, because we come to know ourselves through our interaction with others. The result of this blunting of interaction is an isolating process  that can lead to loneliness and depression.

     Some people cannot engage in the lovely dance that is human interaction through facial mobility because of nerve disease or damage, as can occur in those with Parkinson’s Disease, Moebius Syndrome, Stroke, and the by-product of oral and other facial surgery, for instance. Wearing a mask is pretty similar. A facial paralysis is mask-like, after all.

     When we cannot ‘read’ the expressions of others, we very readily assume that the other person doesn’t have much personhood and thus much integrity. The blandness of the mask, whether worn or stuck there by disease or neurological damage, or even just as a matter of personality trait, becomes a ‘blank canvas’ that others can ‘read’ whatever they are inclined to do. I’m remembering right now the trial of Lindy Chamberlain, whose baby was taken by a dingo. Her lack of facial expression was ‘read’ by practically everyone as guilt. Where were the tears, the anguish, the wailing and gnashing of teeth in this cool, collected woman? She literally was deemed guilty by omission.

     When someone is wearing a surgical mask it is as though they are somehow not a person at all, present and absent at the same time. Normally faces are lively and our expressions dance around in response to what we are talking about. In a face that is hidden behind a mask or stuck in a mask-like fashion, there is none of this vibrancy and it’s hard to know what they are thinking or feeling, or if they have any feeling at all. When coupled with words like, “Good to see you,” or “I like how you’re wearing your hair,” or whatever, spoken by a masked one, the words are often treated as though they are sarcastically said, because instead of  a friendly smile, there is nothing. In the face of sarcasm, we usually retreat. In the face of no facial mobility, a paranoid response can emerge. What is this person hiding, what are they concealing from us, do they know stuff we don’t, and so on. These are words that spring from the imagination when little actual information is shared. Sharing, without masks, is playful, caring, and – the containment of this virus aside – this is why I hope we can soon take off our masks and be gloriously responsive again with one another.

Connecting in Strange Times

April 2020

by Dr Elizabeth McCardell, M. Couns., PhD

     Just before the virus covid-19 broke as the pandemic it is at the moment, I went to my favourite place on earth, Rottnest Island, off the coast of Perth, Western Australia. I discovered at my father’s wake thirteen years ago that I was conceived there, in the Bathurst Lighthouse cottage, so you see, Rottnest is in my DNA. It was also a place my brother and I often holidayed with our parents and friends. We used to swim, cycle and wander through the pines and Morton Bay figs, and marvel at the sights of quokas, salt lakes and nesting birds. One of my earliest memories was of nearly drowning at a heavenly place called ‘the Basin’ and being saved and being quite cross about that. I was four and hadn’t learned to swim properly, but that near death experience was strangely beautiful.

     This current visit was a gift from a very old Perth friend of mine, Charles, and we fitted it in perfectly in the scheme of things. Yes, the airports from here in the Northern Rivers to Perth were practically empty of tourists, but everything went smoothly and I did not get sick.

     I stayed for a couple of nights both sides of the Monday to Friday Rottnest holiday stay with dear friends from university days and soaked up the gentle companionship they offered. Then, on Monday, I met Charles at the Fremantle wharf from where the ferry departed and we were transported the 23.9 kilometres across the water to that sunny, beautiful island.

     Each day was perfect: low 20s, sundrenched, calm and clear sea, white sand and bird song. It was extraordinary really. I don’t think I’ve ever known so many days of perfection. Yet, I felt it in my bones that this was a sacred time, before something awful.

    And here we are. We’ve entered a time like the plague, except with wifi, where in-person social distancing is required for the wellbeing of our whole community. Such a term as ‘social distancing’, though must be very worrying for many people, which is why I prefer another such as ‘physical distancing. Hopefully we can continue feeling socially together while maintaining physical distance as much as possible in order to slow the transmission of this disease.  I am worried about the mental health of us all as physical/social isolation is a well known contributor to increased feelings of fear, anxiety and depression born from loneliness. We humans, like most other animals, need social connection; that’s the nature of the beast.  It’s primarily for this reason that I am offering more counselling sessions via Messenger and FaceTime. Clinical Hypnotherapy is also offered online. Both adapt well to the online format.

     My Rottnest holiday feels like a dream, quite apart from everything else, and yet I look down at my feet and see the tan marks of my sandals as well as the tan marks of my bathers, and an abiding feeling of wellness and openness to possibilities. And I can still detect the very special smell of sea and beach rosemary on my rashie. These connect me to my reality, my history, my DNA. My connection with my past is as important as anyone else’s. It’s from my sense of self that I am effective in being present with others. Perhaps this is why we all can contribute: finding the me-ness of me (the you-ness of you) even in these difficult times, so that we can be there not only for ourselves but the selves of others.

    The madness of hoarding food and toilet paper doesn’t define us as human (that defines a profound anxiety for the future); what defines us, and it’s true for many other animals, is a capacity of compassion and deep caring. If anything is to come of this in these difficult times, then I hope it is a greater capacity for sustained empathy for diversity in community. That’s what I’m hoping for.