The Gift of Fear

***NO SPOILERS***

Something about the title and cover design of The Gift of Fear gives the impression that it’s a self-help book about self-defense. It isn’t. The only good thing on the cover is the quotation separating title from subtitle: “This Book Can Save Your Life.” That’s true.

The author is a specialist in security issues and threat assessment who owns a successful private security firm in Los Angeles called Gavin de Becker & Associates. His clients include many high-profile figures. (The acknowledgements section shares an impressive array of many famous names.) His love for the topic is evident, and his reasoning and explanations intelligent and clear.

Really explaining The Gift of Fear in a way that does it justice show more will easily overwhelm this review space, but its main idea is that human intuition (or “gut feeling”) is more powerful and helpful than it gets credit for and absolutely can save one’s life. Logic is always viewed as superior to “mere feelings,” and intuition is feeling; however, de Becker explains that it’s when one employs logic in situations that feel uncomfortable or “off” in some way that those situations can turn dangerous. De Becker says so much about intuition that sounds radical to those who have been taught that logic is paramount.

Fans of true-crime stories will enjoy The Gift of Fear. De Becker intermingled numerous stories—all true, some famous and some not—throughout. Some of the stories illustrate instances when someone’s intuition protected them; other stories are the opposite. De Becker examined the criminal mind and broke apart many famous cases to bolster his chapters on assassins, stalking, domestic violence, violent children, and workplace violence, among others.

He strongly opposes how some movies and TV shows depict romantic relationships, particularly how men are portrayed pursuing women.* He also opposes how media report crime and portray criminals and explains why, after one kind of crime occurs, copycat crimes occur not long thereafter. Criminals receive lionizing media attention, and de Becker argues for a sea change:

"I propose that we don’t show the bullets on the bureau in the seedy hotel room; show instead the dirty underwear and socks on the bathroom floor. I propose that we don’t arrange photo opportunities that show the offender being escorted by ten federal agents from a helicopter to a motorcade of waiting cars. [...]

"Conversely, guarded by federal agents (just like the president), whisked into waiting helicopters (just like the president), his childhood home shown on TV (just like the president), the type of gun he owned fired on the news by munitions experts extolling its killing power, the plans he made described as “meticulous”—these presentations promote the glorious aspects of assassination and other media crimes. Getting caught for some awful violence should be the start of oblivion, not the biggest day of one’s life.

"But it was the biggest day in the life of accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, who was paraded in front of the waiting press surrounded by FBI agents, rushed to a motorcade, and then whisked away in a two-helicopter armada. We saw this even more with accused Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, whose close-up appeared on the covers of Time, U.S. News & World Report, and Newsweek (twice). The cover text of all three described Kaczynski as a “genius.”

"Reporters usually refer to assassins with triple names, like Mark David Chapman, Lee Harvey Oswald, Arthur Richard Jackson. One might come to believe that assassins actually used these pretentious triple names in their pre-attack lives; they didn’t. They were Mark, Lee, and Arthur.

"I propose promoting the least glamorous incarnation of their names. Call a criminal Ted Smith instead of Theodore Bryant Smith. Better still, find some nickname used in his pre-attack life:

"Federal agent: His name is Theodore Smith, but he was known as Chubby Ted."

Furthermore, although media are fond of reporting that criminals “snapped” or claim “nobody could have seen this coming,” de Becker explains that there are, unequivocally, “pre-incident indicators” before violent acts. He lists and explains these in detail.

The Gift of Fear was published in 1997 but fortunately has aged well. The only topic not covered that definitely would be covered in an updated edition is cyber-stalking and general internet safety. As the book stands now, however, the chapter on stalking contains information that can apply to cyber-stalking. Statistics on various types of violence have no doubt changed also. (For instance, the book says 75 women are raped every hour in the U.S., but as of this writing, it’s a little more: 78 every hour, according to the National Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence.)

Ironically, those living in fear are the ones most in need of The Gift of Fear. It’s captivating, educational, and stunning, but even more than that, it really is empowering, life-altering, and life-saving.

*He would appreciate this article:

"How Rom-Coms Undermine Women": http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/11/its-rom-coms-fault-too/...

Update, September 13, 2017: "Stalking, actually: why men who reject rejection are not romantic heroes": https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/12/stalking-men-rejection-rom... show less

A staggering read. Vital for anyone raising children, or whose work regularly brings them in contact with 'the public '. A lot of this is things we all know instinctively, but it is unbelievably useful to see it all pulled together and analysed by a professional with unquestionable resources at his disposal. If you have ever been a victim of unwanted attention or a violent attack you will be amazed to see that it did not 'suddenly come out of nowhere'. Nothing is random. But ultimately, we are all much safer than we might think. The ultimate lesson is: Don't give in to fear, harness it.

This book may contain the highest internal contradiction set, the largest concentration of logical fallacy, and the greatest use of strategies of influence it decries of any book I've read.

Hugest example: We - "Force teaming," Considered bad. Proceeds to use force teaming pretty much non-stop.

Does a fantastic job of creating fear. Fails at citation. Does an excellent job of self advertizement. Fails at ethics.

Presumes men are evil, guns are evil, and women are victims. Presumes that to know a thing, a reader must take the word of the author - That, "If you think about it, X."

In all, an excellent example of how this gentleman, as an advisory on security issues, promoted fear to the nth degree.

Domestic violence chapter: Positively show more toxic.

In short, male of female, competent familiarity with social patterns, violence, and tracking cause and effect presents as indicator of violent tendencies.

Presumes possession, familiarity, and condition imply violent action. show less

I don’t remember exactly why I picked up this one ; my best guess it was on the recommendation list of some other book about human nature and behavior. At any rate, The Gift of Fear is by Gavin de Becker, who runs a private protective service specializing in dealing with stalkers, domestic violence, and workplace violence. The book is good, but not great; the main problem is the extensive use of anecdotes – repeated accounts of how somebody ignored obvious warning signs that a relation was going badly or that something was not quite right in an encounter or that letters from a celebrity admirer were taking on a disturbing tone. De Becker has a long list of such warning signs – “forced teaming”, where somebody you don’t show more especially want to deal with keeps referring to “we”; “too many details”, where somebody you encounter keeps providing personal information; “loan sharking”, where somebody performs some apparently generous act only to demand something in return; and so on. The catch, of course, is that anecdotal evidence is evidence, just not very good evidence; the generalization de Becker provides could apply to so many situations that they cease being useful. The flip side is that if de Becker had written a book with tables of probabilities and Monte Carlo event trees (where, for example, you could decide that if I guy buys you an expensive present on the second date what are the chances that things will go badly at the end) nobody would read it. I seem to think this sort of thing is common in the law enforcement world; a lot of expert opinion is just that – opinion rather than data. Not necessarily bad, of course; expert opinion is sometimes the best you can do, especially in areas where data is hard to come by. Still, I’d like to hear of some cases where all the signs were there but things ended well or where no signs were in evidence but things went badly.


There are plenty of cases where things go badly and there is apparently abundant advance evidence; a boy who decapitates a neighbor’s dog ends up as a mass murderer; a boy who molests children in grade school ends up continuing to do it. We all remember reading about the Navy Yard shooting (too recent for this book) where there was all sorts of evidence that the perpetrator was at least a bubble off level. Still, I’d like to see more numbers. Worth reading for the shock value of some of the cases, and the advice about being careful in dangerous situations is well taken. A fairly long bibliography, but mostly consisting of similar “pop psychology” books. show less

I really liked a lot of his points - that violence is predictable and preventable, and not doing either is a choice we make - but some of it seemed pretty insensitive to larger concerns. Partly I think it's just dated; it's been more than fifteen years since this book was written, and the way we talk about rape and battered women has changed a little.

Partly, though, de Becker is simply just concerned with safety on an individual level, and doesn't consider any larger societal or political implications. For instance: in one story he points out a university's failure to examine a package delivered to a student from a gun company, which did contain a gun which the student later used to shoot several classmates. That is absolutely a show more warning sign of violence - but I'm on the side of the dean who said that the school can't be in the business of opening its students' mail.

He also never brought up one particular failure of intuition which I'm sure lots of people have been thinking about. De Becker puts a lot of weight on intuition, saying that if you're afraid, it's because you've noticed something that's a sign of danger. Well, look, I live in a racist society and my intuition jumps when I see a black guy just out and walking around. Granted I'm a pretty harmless white girl and the worst thing that will happen if I act on my "intuition" is that I'll make some guy's day a little more miserable, but we've all seen recently what happens with people who feel a little more entitled to act out based on their "intuition" of danger. show less

Read: June 2017

I struggled with giving The Gift of Fear a 'star' rating. I didn't 'really like it' as the four stars would imply; in fact it left me feeling, ironically, pretty fearful about the state of the world we live in. This book is a must-read for others like me; who worry about what other people think of them, who want to be seen as polite, considerate and friendly, even if deep down something doesn't feel right about whatever situation we're in.

What I really took from this book were two important points: 1) I should always trust my gut feelings but remember that there is a difference between a 'worry' and a 'fear' and 2) those who want to do us harm rely on the fact that social conditioning can sometimes prevail over our show more instincts, especially for women who may worry more than men about raising their voice or being confrontational. When my daughter is old enough she will definitely recieve a copy of this book from me to read for herself because I think the points Becker raises are very important for everyone to know. show less

I have mixed feelings on this book.

I'm an ardent feminist and my approach to rape and violence against women is to highlight the societal causes. Rather than admonishing women to protect themselves better, I think it's more constructive to explore how society creates rapists.

I think my biggest problem with this book is with the buzz surrounding it. It got passed around the women in my family, and I often see reviews declaring that every woman should read this book. Despite the fact that the book isn't entirely focused on advice for women, people take it as such. This exacerbates a rape culture wherein women are tasked with preventing crimes from happening against them.

On the other hand, de Becker's book doesn't actually read like one of show more those annoying "How not to get raped" email lists. He doesn't suggest restrictions on women's freedom. Indeed, he argues for the exact opposite. He criticizes the baseless fear that women often feel and encourages them to let it go.

While this, I feel, is a good message, I don't think it can be fully presented without an acknowledgement of the rape culture we exist in wherein if a woman doesn't take "proper precautions", she's thereafter blamed for anything that may happen to her. De Becker neglects to address this angle, which plays a large role in complicating matters.

Feminist literature focuses on how the world needs to shift to make things safer. This book - as well as other mainstream sources - focus on how the individual needs to change to be safer within the world. I feel both are necessary to a degree, but I prefer to think in terms of the former.

That all being said, it's a good book for what it purports to do, and there is a lot more in there than just advice for women. It delves into criminal psychology, stalkers, assassins, and child murderers. I have a fascination with these topics, so I found it quite compelling. A couple sections gave me pause, his chapter on domestic violence, in particular.

Still, this guy knows his stuff, and he provides plenty of examples to illustrate his points. It's not a bad book in that regard, and it's surely worth a read if you're interested in the subject matter. show less