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The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

Gavin de Becker

4.17 · Rating details · 32,205 ratings · 3,298 reviews

True fear is a gift.
Unwarranted fear is a curse.
Learn how to tell the difference.

A date won't take "no" for an answer. The new nanny gives a mother an uneasy feeling. A stranger in a deserted parking lot offers unsolicited help. The threat of violence surrounds us every day. But we can protect ourselves, by learning to trust—and act on—our gut instincts.

In this empowering ...more

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Paperback, 352 pages

Published July 2000 by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (first published 1996)

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Jan 04, 2009 Amber rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: desert-island

The most important book I've ever read. I first encountered de Becker when he was on Oprah years ago, talking about what to teach your child if they get lost in a public place. "Tell them to find a woman who looks like a mommy and ask her for help." After all, how often is a policeman around? This pragmatic, common sense approach stuck with me.

Later, a friend in law enforcement suggested this book and I read it in one sitting. Have a coworker who makes you uneasy? Read this book. Trying to get o ...more

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Mar 05, 2018 Beverly rated it really liked it

The Gift of Fear taught me some important lessons abut paying attention to your instincts. The author spent decades in protection and grew up in an abusive, violent home, so he knows what he's talking about. Some of his ideas are quite counter intuitive, like that Protective Orders don't help and frequently are the catalyst for violence from the offender.

Another idea he has is that women need to be much more assertive with men who they know they will never be interested in. According to his rese ...more

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Sep 23, 2016 Caroline rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: important-nonfiction, he-wrote-it, get-smart, narrative-nonfiction, nonfiction, page-turner, maximum-impact

***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. (A p ...more

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Apr 23, 2013 Darth J rated it did not like it · review of another edition

I was intrigued when Amy Poehler kept mentioning this book in Yes Please, so I decided to order it. Sidenote: Wouldn't this title be a great tagline for a Christmas-themed horror movie? "This Holiday season, give THE GIFT OF FEAR."

Anyway, a lot of this book is common sense, and the author describes "intuition" or your "gut feeling" as (deep voice) THE GIFT OF FEAR! De Becker says this is made of mostly unconscious processes like observing things and being able to predict what will happen... base ...more

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Feb 26, 2013 Besha rated it it was amazing

On the first day of SFSI training for sex educators, we do an exercise called "I Don't Want To Talk About It." Trainees practice saying just that to a partner who inundates them with questions, from the mundane to the highly offensive. (And first-day sex educators can come up with some really offensive questions. Most of them are about anal sex.)

It's hard for many trainees to set that boundary, and most women especially add qualifiers:

"I don't want to talk about that right now."

"I'm sorry, but

...more

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Jan 16, 2012 Lightreads rated it really liked it

Shelves: feminism, crime, nonfiction, psychology

I have a long-standing . . . psychological investment, let's say, in the science of violence: classifying it, predicting it, recovering from it. This book spent a bit of time talking about the epidemic of violence, which needs very little more illustration than to say that three out of every four American women will in their lifetimes be the victim of a violent assault, and a large portion of those assaults will be sexual. This is not something I need convincing on. I often find myself in a pack ...more

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Jan 30, 2013 Ellen rated it really liked it

Removed a caveat here that said I hadn't quite finished the book because, well, I've finished it. Thoughts haven't changed. Enjoy the review!

People are saying that this should be required reading for all women, and while there's certainly a heavy emphasis on women in dangerous relationships or situations, this recommendation is a wee bit shortsighted. I think that everyone could benefit from reading it, particularly when it comes to the examples he gave about the businessman who wouldn't leave a Removed a caveat here that said I hadn't quite finished the book because, well, I've finished it. Thoughts haven't changed. Enjoy the review!

People are saying that this should be required reading for all women, and while there's certainly a heavy emphasis on women in dangerous relationships or situations, this recommendation is a wee bit shortsighted. I think that everyone could benefit from reading it, particularly when it comes to the examples he gave about the businessman who wouldn't leave a (male) company owner alone, or the chapter on troublesome employees.

I had a bit of a hard time with this book at first, for a very basic reason: this is a scary book. The first story alone (about the woman who was raped by a man who conned his way into her apartment) was enough to raise my hackles, and the stories just kept coming. Though in reality this didn't take up that much of the book, it felt like I was slogging through a lot of terror in order to get to the empowering part. The book was making me feel scared and helpless, so I put it down for awhile.

Then, months later, I picked it back up again, because I'd heard so many good things about it from so many people whose opinion on this sort of thing I trust, and because at least one person told me it helped them get away from a particularly poisonous harasser. As it turns out, I had stopped reading right as it was getting good, and from then on I've barely been able to put it down.

One thing I've heard from critics of the book is that the chapter on domestic violence is a bit victim-blaming, and I do have to say I agree. The chapter is helpful, and does go a bit into why battered women often choose not to leave, but then glosses over it by saying that by "letting" herself be battered a second time, she is a volunteer. This is a message that in my opinion is more harmful than helpful to women who have been abused--what you don't want is to tell an abuse victim that she should've made better life choices. She already knows that, she already blames herself for what has happened, and she already beats herself up for it; there is no need to make this feeling worse.

Also part of this is the fact that the DV community has found that it's not beneficial to tell these women what to do (by repeating "leave him leave him leave him!") without regard to what the victim herself wants. This is why people who counsel friends of victims on what to do for support tend to warn them away from demanding that the victim leave--the goal is for her to feel like she is in control of her own life, otherwise she'll resist change, no matter how beneficial it may seem. Good DV advice counsels victims on options they have, things they can do if they decide to stay, with an escape plan if/when it becomes necessary. I would suggest that survivors of abuse either skip that chapter altogether, if they're not ready for it, or take it with a HUGE grain of salt.

Other than that, this has been a superb book and I recommend it to anyone who would be interested in reading it. ...more

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Oct 03, 2015 Emma rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

What this book taught me: I should have listened to my intuition and not read it. (Thanks Jake!)

How can I be the only person that hated this book? It's so dumb. It's so useless. You really needed a 400 page book to tell you, "listen to your gut?"

Give me $7.99 and I'll tell you to listen to your gut.

The Gift of Fear is impossibly repetitive. It is disorganized, badly edited, and mainly serves as a pedestal on which Gavin de Becker can place himself for the rest of us to admire.

This is basically w ...more

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Dec 11, 2009 Goran Powell rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: All martial Artists

Recommended to Goran by: Especially Women

All martial artists should read this.

Hopefully you already know that awareness is by far the most important aspect of self-defense. The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker tells us how to tune into the body's natural awareness (a subconscious intuition for danger that is hard-wired into our psyche). Basically he argues that our intuition is a far better judge than our logical mind when it comes to danger.

The author runs a security firm that guards Presidents and A list celebs among others, his tra ...more

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Dec 24, 2014 NoNameLoves2Read rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: women, young single women, managers that want to avoid hiring employees that may"go postal"

Recommended to NoNameLoves2Read by: Someone on a self defense forum

Sometimes we need a book like this, because not everyone is as obvious as this guy...

Oh sure, let me check in right now!

This book isn't about what to do after a crime has started. Instead, it's about how to prevent these things from happening in the first place. It's about using your intuition, a natural response to things being, "off". It's an instinctive survival signal that we've had since the caveman days.

"Since fear is so central to our experience, understanding when it is a gift -

...more

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Feb 14, 2013 Deborah rated it it was amazing

Since an acquaintance committed murder-suicide some years ago, I have often wondered what I might have done to avert that outcome. I'd cautioned my friends that I saw darkness in him, and even asked his girlfriend--earnestly, not in jest--why she was dating him when she could easily nab someone not-scary. She laughed off my questions, as did friends who told me I was "being too hard on him" or not "giving him enough credit" when I tried to explain my concerns. I couldn't articulate why he made m Since an acquaintance committed murder-suicide some years ago, I have often wondered what I might have done to avert that outcome. I'd cautioned my friends that I saw darkness in him, and even asked his girlfriend--earnestly, not in jest--why she was dating him when she could easily nab someone not-scary. She laughed off my questions, as did friends who told me I was "being too hard on him" or not "giving him enough credit" when I tried to explain my concerns. I couldn't articulate why he made me uneasy in ways that seemed reasonable from the outside. Things like "his smile never, ever reaches his eyes" were too "soft" to make much of an impression on anyone.

When I got the call, it's thus that I was horrified but not surprised. I felt a terrible guilt, because I'd seen something brewing but hadn't been able to change it. I wondered, "What could I have done to change the outcome?" Even a decade later, it's still something I wonder.

This book was recommended to me by two people as a life-changer, so I picked it up with little to no idea about its content. I had no idea it would so directly address the questions I've carried with me for the last decade.

I was delighted to discover it is a guidebook for listening and responding to fear, which aids survival when we listen to it instead of suppressing it as "irrational" or "unreasonable." It is, one learns as reading this book, the gift that protects us when logic takes flight. The caveat is that we must be open to, not dismissive of, its cues to benefit from it.

A dear friend called me shortly after I'd finished reading this book. She was concerned about troubling behavior displayed by her boyfriend. Thanks to having just finished The Gift of Fear, I was able to state that her fear was not only warranted but should be acted on. I summarized what I felt were key points from TGoF about why she should not dismiss her concerns but should instead make safety and distance from him her priority. I read aloud a list of thirty warning signals that one's SO might irreparably harm them. After I'd read the list, my friend said, "He's done at least 25 of those. At least."

Fortunately, because this book is intended as a guide, not a theoretical reflection, it includes information on getting assistance to escape an abusive relationship before it's too late (as well as information about avoiding such relationships by responding to warning signs evidence by abusers). Together, we used that information and put her on a path hopefully out of harm's way.

Since intuition guided me well in my childhood, I've been a lifetime fan. I've even told friends they shouldn't deride it because it's not based so much on sixth sense as human assembly and assessment of actual environmental cues. And yet, there have been many other situations where I've tried to suppress this intuition as inconvenient, or mistaken, or baseless.

After reading this book, I'm much less likely to discount such an intuition, for reasons you'll understand if you give this book a shot. I hope very, very much that you will give it a shot, because, as its author explains, most human violence gives clear and early warning indicators. To benefit from them up front, we must be willing both to hear those warning indicators and to respond as if we have really heard them.

It's my bet you'll be willing to do both things after reading this book, which I recommend wholeheartedly to everyone, everywhere. ...more

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Mar 08, 2017 Jon Nakapalau rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, crime, physical-security, philosophy, cultural-studies

Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the undercurrent of violence in our society today. If you have a child going away to college give this book to them the summer before they leave...you will feel better.

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Oct 24, 2007 Anna rated it it was ok

Recommends it for: paranoids

I saw a girl reading this on the subway and remembered that I read it 5 years ago or so on the recommendation of a friend. It's basically a book version of those internet forwards that tell women how to protect themselves from random attackers and/or serial killers. The gist of it is: Be aware of how you feel and don't discount your fear.

To some extent, this is smart - most people feel afraid for good reason, and you shouldn't feel silly about your fear. The thing I remember most vividly is a s ...more

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Sep 03, 2020 Joy D rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: self-help, crime, non-fiction, psychology, sociology, library-audio, memoir, zck, reviewed

Gavin de Becker encourages us to pay attention to our intuition, which he defines as “knowing without knowing why.” He defines the difference between fear, worry, and anxiety. As an expert in violence, he provides guidance on personal safety, such as offering tips to avoid becoming a victim of crime and what to do to discourage stalking.

Part of the issue in disregarding intuition lies in our desire to act based solely on logic. It is also influenced by our tendency to be polite or protect feelin ...more

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Jan 16, 2012 Punk rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

Non-Fiction. The premise of this book is that if you trust your intuition and learn to recognize certain signs that often precede violence, you can live free of fear because you'll have the tools to identify a threat should one occur and so the rest of the time you can just go ahead and relax.

Are you relaxed yet?

The problem is that this book came out in 1997 and hasn't been revised or updated in the almost twenty years since it was published. In 1997, Mark Zuckerberg was thirteen, less than four Non-Fiction. The premise of this book is that if you trust your intuition and learn to recognize certain signs that often precede violence, you can live free of fear because you'll have the tools to identify a threat should one occur and so the rest of the time you can just go ahead and relax.

Are you relaxed yet?

The problem is that this book came out in 1997 and hasn't been revised or updated in the almost twenty years since it was published. In 1997, Mark Zuckerberg was thirteen, less than four percent of the world owned a cell phone, and you didn't have to take your shoes off before you got on an airplane. A lot has changed in the intervening years, and at times this book sounds completely out of touch.

Other times, it sounds a little too proud of itself. I preferred when de Becker gave real world examples and used them to teach instead of making up examples and speaking theoretically. The former is easy to read; the latter edged into italicized theatrics. There's some good advice under the bombast, but even as he complains about local news sensationalizing violence, parts of his book—like the chapters on stalkers and assassins—make him guilty of the same thing. Knowing how many assassins carry around a copy of The Catcher in the Rye isn't going to keep me safe; that's just de Becker showing off.

So this book is good and bad, and I took what I could from it. I like that he says we have to teach people that 'No' is a complete sentence. That we have to encourage women to say no, and teach men to hear it. But the rest is him mansplaining domestic violence and blaming the victims, and, without exception, de Becker speaks of men as the abusers and women as the victims. He makes no attempt to use gender-neutral language, or acknowledge that women can be abusers, or the existence of same-sex couples. This is written from a straight white man's perspective, and it shows. There's not one word about hate crimes, violence against people of color, or how dangerous it is just to walk around being queer or trans.

Two stars. A limited, and dated, take on fear and violence. The first few chapters and the section on how to spot when someone is using charm as a way of gaining trust for malicious reasons were potentially useful, but the author's attitude toward domestic abuse was offensive and gendered, and the last third of the book had little to do with everyday life. Trigger warnings for discussion of violence, abuse, rape, child harm, self-harm, and animal harm. ...more

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Dec 22, 2009 Emily rated it liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

This book has some useful information, particularly for women, and I appreciate that Mr. de Becker gives the reader permission to trust her instincts while aiming to educate and fine-tune her intuition. That said, he seemed to spend a lot of time at the beginning telling me what he was going to tell me instead of just jumping in and telling me. Also, the closer I got to the end of the book, the more outlandish, sensational, and extreme the examples of violent behavior became and the less applica ...more

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Jul 30, 2018 Mehrsa rated it it was amazing

I wish I could make all young women read this book. Everyone should read it, but the parts about partner abuse and avoiding stalkers and pushy men and keeping yourself safe in relationships were so good. I loved how he talks not just to women about keeping themselves safe, but also addresses the broader cultural messages we give to men to never give up and to not take no as a final answer. No is a complete sentence, he says. Exactly right. I loved his many examples of how our fear can guide us t ...more

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Jul 24, 2008 Kirsten rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: just about everyone

Shelves: non-fiction, psych-and-neuroscience, borrowed

The more I think about this book, the more impressed I feel with how useful it is. So often, information about avoiding danger that is given to people, particularly women, is unhelpful, dangerous, sexist, and/or serves only to feed into paranoia.

De Becker, in contrast, draws a strong distinction between the culture of fear that we live in (where TV news and email forwards cultivate fear of dangers that are unlikely to occur), and fear as an instinctive tool one can use to protect oneself. He poi The more I think about this book, the more impressed I feel with how useful it is. So often, information about avoiding danger that is given to people, particularly women, is unhelpful, dangerous, sexist, and/or serves only to feed into paranoia.

De Becker, in contrast, draws a strong distinction between the culture of fear that we live in (where TV news and email forwards cultivate fear of dangers that are unlikely to occur), and fear as an instinctive tool one can use to protect oneself. He points out repeatedly that there is a difference between helpful fear and anxiety/worry, and that one must learn to quell the voices of paranoia that (for example) tell one that every individual walking down the street is a potential attacker, so that when one encounters someone who actually is a potential attacker, one can "hear" one's fear.

In addition to advising the reader to listen to his/her fear, de Becker also gives helpful tips regarding behaviors to watch for. Does someone refuse to accept "no" for an answer, after it's clearly stated? Do they seek to allay your discomfort by creating camraderie where there is none (using a lot of "we" statements)? Do they seem overly interested, or supply way too many details for someone you've just met?

De Becker doesn't just focus on encounters with strangers or near-strangers (such as dates one has just met). He also spends a great deal of time discussing domestic abuse and child abuse and the way fear functions in these relationships. There is also a great deal of information on workplace violence and ways it can be avoided, which should be required reading for any manager or hiring officer. The only time the book seemed somewhat irrelevant was in the later chapters, where de Becker discusses celebrity stalking and assasinations/assasination attempts. These chapters are interesting from a human behavior standpoint, but are less readily applicable.

Overall, I would recommend this to everyone, but particularly to women like me who sometimes have trouble balancing safety with the desire not to let anxiety rule their lives. ...more

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Sep 19, 2008 Karen rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: every woman

Forgot to add this to my "read" shelf when I joined Goodreads until I saw that Tori is reading it. This book did change my life and years after reading it, there are many points that remain vivid in my memory and I actually recall them fairly regularly. Although the grim reality of what women in particular face in the sense of being targets on a daily basis is made quite clear through the book and scared me, that wears off while the insights gained have changed my perspective on protecting mysel ...more

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Feb 21, 2020 Andy rated it did not like it

The point of this book is to pay attention to early signs and to trust your "intuition." Okay, what are the early signs about this book?
-Endorsement of the author's expertise by Oprah. This is a red flag. You may like Oprah's taste in literature, but her track record on scientific facts is not so good.
-Lots of anecdotes, no rigorous evaluation. Another red flag.
-The anecdotes seem very cherry-picked. For example, a mother is worried about sending her child into surgery and the child dies. Exce ...more

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Feb 16, 2016 Meredith Holley rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: monsters, want-a-hardcover-of-my-very-own, non-fiction, reviewed, history-of-women, best-of-the-year, wise

How had I never heard of this before??? Why were you all keeping this book a secret from me??? This book is so fantastic. There are so many things I want to say to you about it, but mostly just read it.

I’m pretty much obsessed with Gavin de Becker after reading this book, and then Lena Dunham did an interview with him for the Lenny Letter!!! When I saw that I felt like that part in Friends where Ross realizes Monica and Chandler are together:

Ross saying,

My heart grew three sizes, folks.

Gavin de Becker is a ...more

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Jan 27, 2013 la rated it it was amazing

Shelves: owned, ebook, important

a friend gave me this book when I was 18, after a traumatic event in my life. im rating it five stars not just for the content, but for as valuable as i (personally and directly) found it to be. i have reread it a few times, and its relevancy and accuracy hasnt diminished.

i recommend this book to women i know who care about personal safety, but also to people who are interested in the patterns of human behavior; its not just insight into what i consider 'bad behavior,' its a very interesting be ...more

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Dec 26, 2014 Sharon rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommended to Sharon by: Yes Please by Amy Poehler

Shelves: funemployment-2015

For some reason, I assumed this book encouraged women to walk around holding their keys as weapons and always look over their shoulders for random attackers. Nothing could be further from the truth. The author actually dedicates a chapter towards the end of the book to why misinformed, always-heightened worry makes us less safe, and on top of that, undermines the parts of our lives that are safe and happy. I don't know where my assumptions came from, if I had read something misleading or if I wa For some reason, I assumed this book encouraged women to walk around holding their keys as weapons and always look over their shoulders for random attackers. Nothing could be further from the truth. The author actually dedicates a chapter towards the end of the book to why misinformed, always-heightened worry makes us less safe, and on top of that, undermines the parts of our lives that are safe and happy. I don't know where my assumptions came from, if I had read something misleading or if I was just dismissing the book based on the title, but I'm really glad that Amy Poehler talked about The Gift of Fear in Yes Please, because that's the only reason I finally picked it up.

In order to teach people how to make themselves safer in the face of a violent society, de Becker explains the role of fear in our survival instincts. The premise is that our brains do a ton of work to process signals that we aren't consciously thinking about. Sometimes this processing produces fear, which can protect us from harm if we avoid training our instincts with bad data (e.g., 24-hour cable news that hypes up something remote) and if we listen to it instead of dismissing it out of embarrassment or self-doubt.

While I'm sure that my own instincts could use some tuning, practical changes like that didn't motivate me to read the book. I read this for the same reason I read Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men. Unless you have firsthand experience or training in psychology, people who assault other people may seem inscrutable. Popular narratives tend to characterize violent people as monsters who think completely differently from everyone else. What makes both books so powerful and also uncomfortable to read is that Gavin de Becker and Lundy Bancroft explain that it isn't true at all: that many people who assault others aren't mentally ill at all, and that everyone is ultimately motivated by the same simple things, like wanting to feel in control of your own life and wanting to avoid ridicule by others. Sometimes mental illness does play a role, but all commonplace violence comes from broken mindsets where a person feels like they're entitled to outcomes and that their actions are accordingly justified. ...more

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Aug 18, 2010 Anne rated it liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, read-in-2010

I waffled back and forth between three and four stars, so I guess I'd give this one three and a half.
It was informative, but not really what I was expecting. The title and description lead you to believe that this is a sort of 'survival guide' that will help you hone your natural instincts, so you can detect dangerous situations before it is too late. Eh, not as much as I'd hoped. I'm not saying it's devoid of good advice because in between stories and statistics there are some good tips. How to ...more

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Aug 30, 2008 ❀Aimee❀ Just one more page... rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, nonfiction, psychology-sociology, safety

I read this book years ago and never really wrote a review. THIS BOOK IS FASCINATING AND COULD LITERALLY SAVE YOUR LIFE.

Per the author's GR author page,

Gavin de Becker is an expert on the prediction and management of violence. He has served on President's Advisory Board at the U.S. Department of Justice and the Governor's Advisory Board at the California Department of Mental Health; he now runs a consulting firm which advises government agencies, universities, police departments, corporations,

...more

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Jan 31, 2017 Bren rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, educational, social-issues, better-or-worse-than-expected, psychology-self-help, read-and-reviewed

“intuition is always right in at least two important ways;
It is always in response to something.
it always has your best interest at heart”
― Gavin De Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

It is a great book and worth reading. Mr. De Becker teaches you about using your intuition to scope out dangerous situations.

I will not say this book SOLVES everything. I do not believe that to be true. But it will resonate and it is well worth reading and maybe reading again .

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Aug 15, 2014 Paige added it · review of another edition

I read this book because 1) Captain Awkward often refers to and recommends it, and 2) there was a situation that was raising some alarm bells for me so I went looking here for answers. I’m glad I read it but I am pretty conflicted about some of the stuff in it, to the point where I don’t feel I can give it a rating. I have given books the lowest rating for saying things that are less objectionable than some of the things in this book. There are also some chapters that were totally superfluous an I read this book because 1) Captain Awkward often refers to and recommends it, and 2) there was a situation that was raising some alarm bells for me so I went looking here for answers. I’m glad I read it but I am pretty conflicted about some of the stuff in it, to the point where I don’t feel I can give it a rating. I have given books the lowest rating for saying things that are less objectionable than some of the things in this book. There are also some chapters that were totally superfluous and unnecessary; they watered down the impact of the book and seemed to be just GdeB (as he refers to himself)’s ego talking. At the same time, there is some valuable information here that I think many people could benefit from.

The best parts of the book are chapter 4 (Survival Signals), chapter 8 (Persistence, Persistence), and chapter 11 (“I Was Trying to Let Him Down Easy,” about stalking). Chapters 1, 2, and 3 (In the Presence of Danger; The Technology of Intuition; The Academy of Prediction) are also worthwhile and recommended. Chapter 7 (Promises to Kill) and chapter 9 (Occupational Hazards, about workplace violence) are also useful for the workplace and dealing with threats. Even in these chapters, I have a quibble with some of the way he phrases things—for instance, “failing to follow so many other [survival signals] had put her at risk in the first place.” Actually, what had put her at risk in the “first place,” and indeed the only place, was a murderer/rapist. Let’s not frame violence as some sort of failure on the victim’s part, mmkay? Nonetheless I found some of information insightful, probably most of all the list of “concealments” a predator or creep will use to get past defenses.

For the most part, the rest of the book is filler. There is definitely some good information lurking in the other chapters, but mostly they had the effect of diluting his other messages. GdeB’s firm protects famous people, typically, those who are at risk of assassination or deal with more stalkers, threats, security problems, unwanted attention, etc., than the rest of us. Assassination attempts really don’t seem to be a problem for most people, and if they were, they would probably already have hired GdeB’s firm or a similar one. These chapters were also a chance for him to name drop—or pointedly not name-drop, just say “I am protecting the privacy of this celebrity who is a very dear friend of mine”; his “Acknowledgements” are full of celebrity names. I mean, it’s cool that you’re BBFs with xyz celebrity, but maybe save it for your blog? He claims there is a connection between what he was telling us about famous people and their would-be assassins and the regular reader's troubles, but I didn’t see it.

And that’s all fairly minor. The real complaint I have with this book is the chapter on domestic violence. It is awful, and the victim-blaming is pretty atrocious. Captain Awkward typically recommends the book but suggests skipping that chapter because, I quote, “dude has issues.” And boy does he ever. (Even with that caveat, threads often get heated with people expressing their distaste for what GdeB says in this chapter.) I don’t even want to repeat the worst of what he wrote; like a slur, I’m averse to speaking it because it’s repugnant, and like a slur it pretty much performs the function of disrespecting an already marginalized group. In the interest of keeping this review short(ish) and manageable, and to keep my blood pressure low, I am just going to say that most people are going to be better off for skipping that chapter. It’s unfortunate that GdeB fumbled so badly here, because women are much more likely to find themselves in an abusive relationship than most of the other dangers he goes over in the book. Instead of this chapter, I strongly recommend reading Why Does He Do That? by Lundy Bancroft. It is the best resource for abusive relationships and domestic violence that I have found. If it were up to me, every person in our country would read and internalize Bancroft’s information on and messages about abuse. I am sure this book would be better if GdeB had done that.

Something else troubling about the book is the way it handles mental illness. GdeB lets us know repeatedly that almost all assassins are mentally ill. And they may be. However based on the way GdeB presents it, there is a subtext that the mentally ill commit violence, especially “random” or “senseless” violence. And that is just not the whole picture. No mention is made of the fact that mentally ill people are more likely to be on the receiving end of violence than dealing it. No mention is made of the fact that sufferers of certain mental illnesses are much more likely to be attacked than the general population. No mention is made of the fact that overall, the incidence of violence among people with mental illnesses is very small and does not contribute much to the rates of violence in our society. GdeB leaves all of this out, instead reminding us over and over again that this assassin was mentally ill, or that this person who committed a gruesome murder was mentally ill. It offers a distorted picture of mental illness and the risks associated with it. This is irresponsible since it promotes stigma and fear of those with mental illnesses.

There were some major problems with this book that, for me, dragged the entire work down. I hesitate to suggest it to people due to these flaws, but it's true that it contains helpful information that I think many people would be better off knowing about. I am already someone who relies on intuition and is aware of that, and I make accurate judgment calls on people that in most cases become validated weeks, months, or years down the road (or so I hear from the friends who didn’t want to hear my opinions in the first place), but many people eschew their intuition or are afraid to rely on it. This book would be particularly helpful for them. A lot of the good stuff in it is such basic common sense (for instance, people who push your boundaries or don’t respect your “no” are probably not people with your best interest at heart), but laying it out, calling attention to it, and giving people permission to trust the unease they feel in those situations is where the book shines. ...more

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Jul 10, 2008 Jake rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: anthropology, self-defense, psychology

This book was recommended to me years ago by Tony Blauer and Van Canna Sensei, a very high ranking (and very skilled) Uechi-Ryu instructor. I've read it several times since then, and recently re-read it as prep for a project for my book publicity class. It's a great book, so I thought I'd throw a review of it up here.

The Gift of Fear is a book about violence. Specifically, it's about predicting violence, and how most modern people ignore the signals that their intuition and their body give them This book was recommended to me years ago by Tony Blauer and Van Canna Sensei, a very high ranking (and very skilled) Uechi-Ryu instructor. I've read it several times since then, and recently re-read it as prep for a project for my book publicity class. It's a great book, so I thought I'd throw a review of it up here.

The Gift of Fear is a book about violence. Specifically, it's about predicting violence, and how most modern people ignore the signals that their intuition and their body give them about violent, or potentially violent situations. De Becker takes the conceit that violence is random, unpredictable, and unavoidable, and thoroughly debunks it through a combination of research, psychology, and a lot of illustrative stories.

The book begins with a general overview of some of De Becker's main ideas, describes his work in some detail (he runs an agency that provides protective services to a wide variety of clients), and a few stories to help get those ideas across. Later chapters move into more specific types of threats, including stalkers, domestic violence, workplace violence, and eventually culminating with an interesting discussion of assassins. In each chapter, De Becker gives examples of common predictors of certain types of violence, and breaks down a few myths about how to deal with potentially violent predators.

I should be clear—this book is focused almost entirely on verbal and psychological strategies. You won't find diagrams of how to elbow someone in the head or kick someone in the groin here. but the information presented here can help you predict and avoid the situations where you might need to elbow and kick someone, which, to my mind, is the best form of self-defense you can practice.

There's a great deal of really valuable information presented here, and it's presented very well. You don't need to be a practicing martial artist to get a tremendous amount out of this—if you have ever worried about being the victim of violence, read this book. It's worth it. ...more

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Feb 13, 2011 Krista rated it it was ok

Shelves: pop-psych, recby_hax, advice

I finally read this, after seeing Carolyn Hax recommend it for years, but it wasn't nearly as good as I expected it to be. It reminded me of Malcolm Gladwell's books--quick to read, lots of anecdotes and "science", but ultimately not really helpful because you can pull one of the examples to support any argument you want to make.

For example, in one of the chapters he talks about watching a predatory man strike up a conversation with a single girl on an airplane, and he ticks off the warning thi ...more

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Jul 11, 2020 Heather Gilbert rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2020-reads

Such a helpful book on so many levels. Basic takeaway--trust your gut, because your fear instinct makes sense of things you might not even put together until later. Such great insights. I highly recommend for women in particular.

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About Gavin de Becker

Gavin de Becker

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Gavin de Becker is an expert on the prediction and management of violence. He has served on President's Advisory Board at the U.S. Department of Justice and the Governor's Advisory Board at the California Department of Mental Health; he now runs a consulting firm which advises government agencies, universities, police departments, corporations, and media figures on the assessment of threats and ha ...more

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“Most men fear getting laughed at or humiliated by a romantic prospect while most women fear rape and death.” — 373 likes

“intuition is always right in at least two important ways;
It is always in response to something.
it always has your best interest at heart” — 206 likes

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