Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a mental health story. It depicts a psychological illness called “split personality,” wherein within the same person lives at least 2 distinct personalities. In this case, the two personalities of Dr. Henry Jekyll are good and evil.
Psychological and emotional illness flourishes within a person when there is a “double life,” with all its delusion and pain. A most devastating emotional risk of the split or double life is suicide. To preserve his integrity, Dr. Jekyll had to kill Mr. Hyde. Some in despair think that the only way out of a painful double life is to die.
With appropriate help, the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde among us can integrate new, life-giving beliefs and discard dysfunctional thinking. Otherwise, the evil, addiction, or double life feeds itself.
“A double minded man is unstable in all his ways” (James 1:8)
