When the development of this synthetic construct of comfort was discussed in the theory course a question was raised: Is a person who denies all feeling, presents himself as emotionally dead, comfortable? If feelings are not relegated to the mind alone, as the effects of a peptic ulcer cannot be relegated to the stomach, if feelings are an essential of the nature of humanness, a human who denies this essential of his nature would not fit into this concept as comfortable. This synthetic construct of comfort, like its synonym contentment, described by Plutarch A.D. 46-120, does not imply passivity, resignation, retirement, or a simple avoiding of trouble. Plutarch said, "Contentment comes very dear if its price is inactivity."[3] I would perceive of comfort or contentment as implying that a human being was all he could be in accordance with his potential at any particular time in any particular situation. Continuing the aforementioned twelve nurse behaviors, observing behavior through the four established criteria and conceptualizing the construct of comfort, I began to wonder. Was I seeing what I had decided was the state of psychiatric patients' conditions of being? Was I projecting discomfort onto patients? I did not expect straight answers. Nonetheless, I decided to ask patients about their discomfort-comfort states to verify my perception of the condition of their beings. All fourteen patients I asked assured me by their responses that I was not projecting or seeing discomfort where it did not exist. Some described physical discomfort and sought the cause within and outside themselves (either another caused it, or another could cure it, pills would cure it), negatively viewed self-images, guilt based in their behaviors or thoughts. One patient defined comfort by analogy and stated directly to my surprise that he seldom felt comfortable and that his excessive ritualistic behavior was his way of coping with his discomfort. One repetitively stated a happy illusion that he seemed to hang on to for dear life. When I asked what he would do if this illusion was not truth, he said that he had never considered {102} this possibility. I knew he had been confronted with the truth of his situation many times in many ways. One patient merely looked directly at me and walked away.