The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Gift of Fear
Book Review: A good premise, but ethnocentric and limited.
Summary: 3 Stars
The premise of this book is simple: respect your fear and trust your intuition, and you will be safer. It's excellent advice. However, that's all the book provides. There are no strategies for self-protection, no tips to making oneself less attractive to criminals. The emphasis is on reacting to the threat of violence instead of proactively avoiding it.It seems to be a common belief of American authors that there is an enormous net surrounding the United States which prevents their works from being read outside that country's borders. Mr. de Becker is a prime example. A reader living outside the US might find de Becker's assumptions annoying if not outright ludicrous.
This book may also not sit well with relatives of violent criminals. It is de Becker's belief that poor parenting is at the root of most violent crime. Few would disagree that poor parenting can cause a child to grow up antisocial or criminal, but so can many other things; heredity, war, abuse by someone in trust other than a parent, the death of a parent, divorce, or poverty.
Book Review: A great book with many answers, just not all the answers.
Summary: 5 Stars
I have completed the book The Gift of Fear. It is a worthwhile investment of my time and money. Working in Homeland Security and leading a security team at my church, will both be benefitted by the concepts set forth in this book. I think it should be read, and taught, to all young people, both male and female, starting at about 11 or 12 years of age. It would be good to learn from it at any age. The reason I used "just not all the answers" in the preview, is that it offers great advice on trusting intuition, recognizing fear for what it is, that being something that has not occured yet, and may or may not occur, and recognizing warning signs of violence. It does not however, offer any substantive advice or counsel on what to do if you do everything right, and still encounter violence. There is nothing that will preclude all violence as long as we live on this earth, so knowing how to recognize violence and avoid it are great to a point. There will however always be acts of violence, and you will still be just as raped, assaulted and murdered, whether being aware or unaware of what precludes and perpetuates violence. The author appears to be staunchly anti-gun, and ridicules legitimate, responsible and Second Amendment confirmed rights of gun ownership. I suspect the authors team would be likely armed in anticipation of a confrontation with one of their clients stalkers. They would be foolish if they were not. You can take many measures to avoid and even mitigate violence, you cannot however, take steps that will lead to total avoidance. In those cases only violence of greater force, more accuracy, and greater speed will overcome this violence. The book is a good read, and you will learn at lot from it as I did, just don't expect it to be your total savior if violence should come your way.Book Review: A life saver.
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is wonderful. I just read a few pages on the explanation of the cause of fear and its given me the answer to a lingering fear I've carried for many (and I mean many!) years. I feel I can move on now and be my old self again. Thank you Mr. Gavin De Becker, Sir!Book Review: A must for anyone who interacts with other humans.
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a well written, fairly quick read that I would suggest for anyone who is, or knows, or could be someone who has ever been a "victim". It very well could be the information that saves you or someone you love. Knowledge is power!Book Review: A must read for all human resource workers.
Summary: 5 Stars
As a parent educator and children's protective services social worker I highly recommended this book to everyone, parent or not. We can no longer afford to teach our children to ignore their instincts. We override their concerns about other people by telling them not to be silly because s/he is such a "nice person". I have used De Becker's pre-incident indicators to teach parents how much harm they do when they fail to teach their children assertiveness skills. Most of us miserably fail our children in this arena since we sure don't want them practicing their skills on us! After all, we dare not raise a child, especially a female, who has the audacity to refuse to submit to someone who wants to control them. All the child molesters, male or female, I have had the unpleasant task of interviewing are very "charming" and described by friends, neighbors and acquaintances as a "nice" person.