Jimmy Stewart starred in a lovely, rather poignant 1950 movie in which Stewart’s character had an imaginary friend named Harvey. Wikipedia’s  description of the movie is delightful, so I will skip the details and get to my point;

If you are like most people, and I think most of us are… you may have occasionally wondered about your own sanity.  You know, like when you run madly about the house searching for your car keys and you had them in your hand all along…

In a psychology class I attended long ago, the professor talked about mental health issues in terms of ‘duration and degree’.  We’ve all had those moments when we could swear we heard something, saw something… and questioned if we were going crazy or not. 

Duration and degree is one way to assess the seriousness of any mental health situation.  How long did the episode last?  To what degree did it occur?  Did you see that pink elephant long enough to have a complete conversation, or was it just a flash?  Just that one time, or was it daily over the course of a few months?

The question of duration and degree can be used to assess any behavioural incident.  Does your boss (or you) lose her/his temper every day and rant for an hour? Or only before important deadlines, and only for a few minutes?

Does your elderly loved one regularly turn the dishwasher on with no dishes in it?  Or just that once when she/he was all distracted about the new neighbours?

To what degree do you like Contentment is for Cows?  The duration extends to Chapter Six, Scene Four…

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Enjoy.