Nurses have a constant emotional involvement with patients and relatives. This emotional labor has found to have ambiguos correlations with nurses' well-being. We aim to underscore that handling emotions with patients is not negative neither positive. The focus of this work is on how nurses manage with emotional involvement with patients. Empathy and emotional dissonance are two different states of being which are involved in the emotional labor.We examine the role played by empathy and emotional dissonance in (not)promoting quality of nurses' working life.

Letizia Dal Santo studied Analytical Psychology and Psychoanalytical Psychotherapy. She also took a phD in Organizational Psychology. At the moment she works as a psychotherapist and teaches Group Psychology at the University of Verona, Departement of Nursing Studies.