Here at REACH, one of the comments we hear most frequently from clients who come to us for help is: “No one believes me when I try to tell them that he is so violent (or verbally abusive) towards me (and the children) when we’re alone with him.

They think he is such a great guy cause he puts on this really friendly, “good buddy” face when he is around his friends and the people at work or church. But in front of me and the children, he’s a totally different person. When he walks through our door, he turns into the devil himself. What happened to the loving person I married?”

This dangerous situation is so common it even has a name: Life with a Jekyll and Hyde Personality. Before the scientific psychological discoveries of Freud and others in the twentieth century, Scottish author Robert ...