The author of Gift of Fear, Gavin de Becker learned threat assessment by growing up in a very unhappy home. He runs a very successful threat assessment and protective security firm. Gavin’s thesis is that violent criminals are just as human as everyone else, as such the intuition gained from living as social animals can warn of violence. The Gift of Fear uses case histories from Gavin’s clients as well as personal experiences to illustrate survival signals and help people “never to become a victim”. In the book he points to some particular techniques but says that “most of it is in you”. This book is not a manual, it’s a narrative. It’s hard for me to review it because I was looking for guidance on learning the techniques described; but in Gavin’s opinion without constant terror that might not be possible. It’s educational, but you will spend far too much time searching for the pearls of wisdom it contains.
The book starts with a few scary stories to set the stage for why one should care. The author then builds the case for intuition and its ubiquity in humans. He spends a bit of time dispelling the notion that violent criminals are not human. He concludes that normal human intuition, as possessed by everyone, is tuned to detect danger from other humans and thus works for violent criminal encounters.
Gavin posits that in order to reduce risk we have to know what it looks like. He identifies seven signals of potential danger to watch for in an interaction: 1) forced teaming, 2) charm and niceness, 3) too many details, 4) typecasting, 5) loan sharking, 6) unsolicited promises, and 7) discounting the word ‘NO’. Any of these actions, but particularly combinations of them should trigger your intuition. Then it becomes a matter of recognizing that the intuition has been triggered, and acting on that trigger. He puts this as “some things need to be seen to be believed, some must be believed to be seen”.
The difficult part is in knowing that your intuition has been triggered. He list these messengers of intuition: nagging feelings, persistent thoughts, humor, wonder, anxiety, curiosity, hunches, gut feelings, doubt, hesitation, suspicion, apprehension, and fear. He cautions against setting a fixed response such as “never resist”. There might be some cases where resistance is appropriate. However the only guidance he gives is to “listen to yourself”. I was disappointed with this response; there must be a way to train this response.
The characteristics of people who act without conscious are: glib and superficial, egocentric and grandiose, lacking remorse and guilt, deceitful and manipulative, impulsive, in need of excitement, lacking responsibility, and emotionally shallow. I think this is a great description of your favorite political nemesis. But I don’t think that I am capable of applying this in real life with any certainty; your results may be better.
In the rest of the book Gavin gives further lists of qualities for various life situations; threats from intimate friends, threats from children, and threats from coworkers. They are interesting but being a social cripple I couldn’t make them work for me. That is not to say that they are useless. Knowing that an individual is a potential threat may make it more likely to believe there is something to be seen.
This book has more than a few weaknesses’; chief among them being Gavin’s reliance on the concept of ‘intuition’. He calls the synthesis intuition but repeatedly points out that it’s really based on observations. If this is the case then the observations on which it is based could be cataloged. For interaction between strangers, this gap is filled by Left of Bang. Patrick Van Horne and Jason A. Riley were able to catalog the human behavioral domains and they charted a path to building intuitive skill. That’s why I find Left of Bang so valuable. The remaining gap is building skill in determining threats from known individuals. I’m still searching for the prescription that fills it.
I still recommend reading this book. It is well to be reminded of the depth and variety in actions people of evil intent will take.