The Gift of Fear and Other Survival Signals that Protect Us From Violence
by Gavin de Becker
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Book Reviews of The Gift of Fear and Other Survival Signals that Protect Us From Violence
Book Review: A Book Can Merit 5 Stars Even If It's Flawed
Summary: 5 Stars
Nearly ten years after its publication, The Gift of Fear rightly has a slate of Amazon reviews probably longer than the book. Valid criticism is available in every "star" category. Sometimes, however, a book transcends even its gripping thesis; The Gift of Fear does this.
It does so by a subtle repetition of the incontrovertible fact: Evil exists. De Becker's easy-to-read style drives home this reality. Even if--as the book's nastiest reviews point out--at points its message seems self-interested ("the reader needs professional guidance in order to protect herself; hire us"), so what? Do artisans or experts in other fields, who write How To books, never lead readers to infer sometimes professional help is mandatory? Psychologists do it all the time!
What I particularly admired about The Gift of Fear isn't its "You might have acted differently if you had been armed with what I'll tell you" stuff. It was De Becker's unflinching belief in Evil and Evil's many guises. That he ignores what one negative reviewer mincingly points out: pride often leads to victimization, is not the book's issue.
Of course pride leads to victimization. Innocence leads to victimization. Hindsight--a fool's or an innocent's--is always 20/20. Should De Becker not have written this unapologetic analysis of the wicked mind because potential victims might be stupid, lazy, or even wicked themselves?
The book's final message is like Cat Steven's song: "Baby, Baby, It's a Wild World." Will crime victims yet to be victimized prevent crimes from happening to them if they read it? Maybe not. Crimes of the magnitude De Becker details aren't committed by idiots. But if The Gift of Fear keeps one single woman from opening the door to a handsome "repairman"; if it makes one father suspicious of a son's overly polite and talkative best friend; if it gives one co-ed an intuition that leaving a party with a "personality guy" might not be a good idea, then it will be more than worth reading. It will have saved a life.
Book Review: This book will save lives
Summary: 5 Stars
The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals that Protect us from Violence is a groundbreaking book that will remain a classic among books on this subject. Having first read this book in 1997 I find that 13 years later I still refer back to this book regularly and recommend it in almost every safety and survival training class that I instruct. Gavin de Becker is the nation's leading expert on predicting violent behavior and he continues to lead the way in his field of study.
The beauty of the Gift of Fear is that we all have "intuition" and "gut feelings", it is what we do with these feeling that can determine whether the outcome is tragic or uneventful. The book teaches you to never ignore such feelings and that our intuition is an early warning sign that something IS wrong. Human beings are the only creature on the planet that will ignore this sense and oftentimes it leads to tragic outcomes. The beauty is that you don't need to buy a gadget to tap into this resource...you are born with it and all you have to do is listen to it and acknowledge it. Our world is filled with signals of danger yet many, if not most, people go about their business with a complete lack of situational awareness. Oftentimes these people present themselves as optimal targets by looking down at the ground when they walk, shoulders slumped, avoiding eye contact, etc. We have people completely oblivious who are walking around listening to their MP3 player, iPod, or talking on their cell phones. All of these distractions make such individuals inviting targets for the predators in society. Having situational awareness to know what is going on in your environment allows your intuition to provide you an early warning signal that something is wrong which in turn allows you to acknowledge the feeling and then ACT accordingly. The Gift of Fear will provide you will the necessary information to act accordingly. Buy this book, read it and then make your loved ones read it! Yes, it is that valuable.
Book Review: Somewhat helpful to women, but too much anti-gun propaganda
Summary: 2 Stars
I'll keep this review short and sweet:
I bought this book not only to get some insight into how/when I need to go into "defensive" mode regarding strangers and their intentions, but also to give it to my attractive younger single sister who is now living alone in a big city.
For her, it may be of some help, though she's a pretty smart cookie and is naturally suspicious of men and their motives. Some of the stories are irrelevant, and unless you are a celebrity or are protecting one, I don't understand why so much time was devoted to that minority of the population and their particular issues.
However, the glaring and unnecessary parts about firearms was what elicited this review and the low rating it got. This is NOT supposed to be a book extolling or criticizing the use of firearms. There are other more detailed and scholarly works that go into this. Whether you are for or against the use of a firearm for self-defense is irrelevant here - the author uses his book as a soapbox to give his personal opinions on the matter, and uses flawed logic and bias to push his own views, which could get someone killed. He waits until the end of the book, after he has won you over with his words and deeds and gained your trust. Then he tells you that firearms are always bad, that you should do things to them if you DO decide to keep them around that render them totally useless to you if you should need them. He offers no mention of the fact that they are used successfully to war off attacks millions of times a year - he simply relates a few stories where perhaps they may have been inappropriate to the situation, and even these examples are pretty far-fetched and weak.
Book Review: Learning to sense and act on your intuition
Summary: 5 Stars
I have been recommending "The Gift of Fear" since it was first published ten years ago. As a neuroscientist, psychology and self-defense teacher, and mother, I give it my highest recommendation.
Intuition is not ESP or magic. Rather, intuition is information that we are sensing that doesn't quite make it to consciousness. And if it does break the surface of our attention, we have often been socialized to "talk ourselves out" of knowing what we know. We often minimize and rationalize away a true danger as we walk more deeply into a bad situation.
Imagine how much safer we would all be if we allowed ourselves to really listen to those signals and ACT on them. A teenager on a date -- it is so much safer to draw a boundary at the door at the end of the night, rather than inviting someone in who makes her uncomfortable. It's common sense, but very hard to do in an actual social situation. De Becker gets us over that hurdle.
There are two key aspects to De Becker's work: he exposes the tactics that predators use to break down our defenses (typically not physical weapons at first, but social tricks such as implying that we are being rude or bitchy and challenging us to prove otherwise), and he teaches us to listen and act to our perceptions of true fear.
The good news is that once you sharpen your intuitive skills, you can actually say goodbye to the constant "static noise" of free-floating worry and anxiety, knowing that if there is something you need to pay attention to, you will hear that signal like a clear bell and act on it.
Book Review: Some Relevant Information
Summary: 3 Stars
As a young child, Gavin De Becker lived in a household of violence. As a result, he developed keen observation skills to help him decide what the best course of action would be when a situation began to look out of control. As an adult, he has been able to study cases of violence and further hone his techniques. In this book, he gives some logical advice about avoiding violence, backed up by numerous anecdotes.
I liked the reminder that we should all be aware of our intuition. If something feels wrong, there is probably a reason, and we shouldn't ignore these feelings. I think that it's always useful to have a reminder to be aware of our environment and the people in it, and it's also good to have a reminder that certain horrific scenarios, such as random kidnapping, are much less likely than the media would have us believe.
However, much of this book simply wasn't relevant to my life. As a series of anecdotes about the rich and famous, or a "day in the life" memoir of a security expert, it was very interesting. As a book that would help me in specific situations I may encounter, it wasn't as helpful as I would have hoped. A fairly small group of people will be called upon to screen someone for employment, or to fire that person when things go badly. An even smaller pool of people will ever be famous and find themselves stalked by a fan, or a victim of blackmail attempts.
The author's life is colorful; there is no denying that. His work is fascinating and useful, but much of it simply isn't useful to ME.