Chapter 1 – Story of the Door Utterson and Enfield are out for a walk when they pass a strange-looking door (the entrance to Dr Jekyll’s laboratory). Enfield recalls a story involving the door. In the early hours of one winter morning, he says, he saw a man trampling on a young girl.

The moral message of Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is that man’s soul is paired with both elements of good and evil. These basic elements cannot be separated because man is defined by the conflict within his inner nature and how he deals with this duality.

Jekyll is a kind and respected English doctor who has repressed evil urges inside of him. In an attempt to hide this, he develops a type of serum that he believes will effectively mask his dark side. Instead, Jekyll transforms into Edward Hyde, the physical and mental manifestation of his evil personality.

Mr Hyde is described as devilish, evil and a criminal mastermind. Stevenson makes Hyde more mysterious by only hinting at his physical appearance – he is smaller than Jekyll and whenever people see him, they are deeply affected by his looks and spirit. He is selfish and wishes for complete dominance over Jekyll.

After Hyde murders a vicar, Jekyll’s friends suspect he is helping the killer, but the truth is that Jekyll and Hyde are the same person. Jekyll has developed a potion that allows him to transform himself into Hyde and back again. When he runs out of the potion, he is trapped in his Hyde form and commits suicide.

Jekyll has spent most of his life trying to be good and doing good things. So naturally his evil side isn’t all that big. Because of that, Hyde is smaller and younger than Jekyll. Hyde is younger because the evil part of Jekyll hasn’t been used as much and isn’t as tired as the good.

Sir Danvers Carew

He made a potion that allowed him express his urges without feeling guilty and without any consequences besmirching his good name. That’s also why he names his alter ego “Hyde,” because Hyde is a disguise, to be worn and discarded like a thick cloak.

Although Mr Hyde is invariably depicted as a huge monster, in the original book he is described as being slightly smaller physically than Dr. Jekyll, since the evil part of his personality was the lesser part.

Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are the same person. Dr. Jekyll is a scientist who, while searching for a way to separate his good self from his bad impulses, creates a potion that transforms himself into a man without a conscience.

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It tells the story of a mild-mannered doctor named Henry Jekyll who drinks a serum that causes him to turn into Edward Hyde, a man who is controlled by his baser instincts. While its plot was a bit fantastic and outlandish for the time, the book was very much inspired by real life events (sans magic potions).

The book is relevant today because in the same way that Jekyll is addicted to Hyde, people in modern society are addicted to alcohol and cigarettes to relieve pressure. The message in this book is if we ignore our evil side it will return with more vengeance which you wouldn’t be able to control.

The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a well-known example of a psychiatric disorder, commonly known as split personality.

The 9 symptoms of BPD

• Fear of abandonment. People with BPD are often terrified of being abandoned or left alone.
• Unstable relationships.
• Unclear or shifting self-image.
• Impulsive, self-destructive behaviors.
• Self-harm.
• Extreme emotional swings.
• Chronic feelings of emptiness.
• Explosive anger.

Jekyll/Mr. Hyde. Correspondingly, the modern definition and symptoms of the disease, now known as bipolar disorder, matches what Dr. Jekyll describes in his point of view within the novel.

There is no evidence to suggest, however, that at that stage, the public conceived of the Jekyll and Hyde personality as schizophrenia, because the word had yet to be coined. In fact, the Jekyll and Hyde personality would first become bound to the idea of multiple personality—now called dissociative identity disorder.

: one having a two-sided personality one side of which is good and the other evil.

DID requires the individual have two or more separate personalities or identities that take control of the individual. In this specific case, Jekyll suffers from his seperate identity, Hyde. They both want to have control over the body and the mind without the others in the back of their mind.

Dissociative identity disorder was previously referred to as multiple personality disorder. Symptoms of dissociative identity disorder (criteria for diagnosis) include: The existence of two or more distinct identities (or “personality states”).

OSDD is the combination of DDNOS 1a and DDNOS 1b, meaning that OSDD is a similar diagnosis to DID except that the individual has less intense symptomatology regarding either amnesia or identity separation. OSDD was officially adopted in the DSM-V, which was published in 2013.

When you have dissociation, you may forget things or have gaps in your memory. You may think the physical world isn’t real or that you aren’t real. You may notice other changes in the way you feel, such as: Have an out-of-body experience.

The exact cause of dissociation is unclear, but it often affects people who have experienced a life-threatening or traumatic event, such as extreme violence, war, a kidnapping, or childhood abuse. In these cases, it is a natural reaction to feelings about experiences that the individual cannot control.

Mental health professionals recognise four main types of dissociative disorder, including:

• Dissociative amnesia.
• Dissociative fugue.
• Depersonalisation disorder.
• Dissociative identity disorder.

Zoning out is considered a form of dissociation, but it typically falls at the mild end of the spectrum.

Steps to reduce dissociation and increase self-awareness. This can be done anywhere. Mindfulness walk. Notice how your body feels with each step, take your time paying close attention to physical sensations throughout your body. Slow breathing.

Some versions of the 54321 grounding method say to name one thing you like about yourself. Regardless of how you approach this, the goal is to identify elements in the world around you. As your mind begins to focus on these things, it will be less focused on the sudden rush of anxiety.