Each hour, 75 women are raped in the United States, and every few
seconds, a woman is beaten. Each day, 400 Americans suffer
shooting injuries, and another 1,100 face criminals armed with
s. Author Gavin de Becker says victims of violent behavior
usually feel a sense of fear before any threat or violence takes
place. They may distrust the fear, or it may impel them to some
action that saves their lives. A leading expert on predicting
violent behavior, de Becker believes we can all learn to
recognize these signals of the "universal code of violence," and
use them as tools to help us survive. The book teaches how to
identify the warning signals of a potential attacker and
recommends strategies for dealing with the problem before it
becomes life threatening. The case studies are gripping and
suspenseful, and include tactics for dealing with similar
situations.
People don't just "snap" and become violent, says de Becker,
whose clients include federal government agencies, celebrities,
departments, and shelters for battered women. "There is a
process as observable, and often as predictable, as water coming
to a boil." Learning to predict violence is the cornerstone to
preventing it. De Becker is a master of the psychology of
violence, and his advice may save your life. --Joan Price
A Q&A with Gavin de Becker
Question: In today’s world, where terror and tragedy seem
omnipresent, the fear of violence never seems more heightened. Is
the world a more violent place than it ever has been? Gavin de
Becker : Your question contains much of the answer: today’s
world, "where terror and tragedy seem omnipresent..." The key
word is "seem." When TV news coverage presents so much on these
topics, it elevates the perception of terrorism and tragedy way
beyond the reality. In every major city, TV news creates forty
hours of original production every day, most of it composed and
presented to get our attention with fear. Hence an incident on an
airplane in which a man fails to do any damage is treated as if
the make-shift bomb actually exploded. It didn’t. Imagine having
a near miss in your car, avoiding what would have been a serious
collision--and then talking about every hour for months after the
fact. Welcome to TV news.
To the second part of your question, No, the world is not a
more violent place than it has ever been, however we live as if
it were. The U.S. is the most powerful nation in world
history--and also the most afraid.
Question: You were just on the Oprah show discussing spousal
homicide--can you talk about the show, and whether spousal
homicide is a growing epidemic?
Gavin de Becker: Through two shows Oprah dedicated to the
topic, we’re conveying a great deal of new information, and most
of all, Oprah’s announcement that a MOSAIC assessment system
developed by my firm will be made available to any person who
wants to use it, at no cost, via her website. This will allow
anyone to diagnose a relationship to determine if it has the
combination of factors most associated with escalated violence,
and spousal homicide. Is spousal homicide increasing? It is not;
however, the reality is more disturbing than an increase: Spousal
homicide has remained a constant in our lives, such that every
four hours at least one woman is killed in America by a husband
or boyfriend. That uninterrupted and sad statistic can be
interrupted and changed--because as explored in The Gift of Fear,
spousal homicide is the single most preventable serious crime in
America--largely owing to that fact that it always occurs after
many warning signs, and after several people are aware of the
risk.
Question: Your bestselling book The Gift of Fear gives many
examples to help readers recognize what you call pre-incident
indicators (PINS) of violence. What role does intuition play in
recognizing these signals?
Gavin de Becker: Like every creature on earth, we have an
extraordinary defense resource: We don’t have the sharpest claws
and strongest jaws--but we do have the biggest brains, and
intuition is the most impressive process of these brains. It
might be hard to accept its importance because intuition is often
described as emotional, unreasonable, or inexplicable. Husbands
chide their wives about "feminine intuition" and don’t take it
seriously. If intuition is used by a woman to explain some choice
she made or a concern she can’t let go of, men roll their eyes
and write it off. We much prefer logic, the grounded,
explainable, unemotional thought process that ends in a
supportable conclusion. In fact, Americans worship logic, even
when it’s wrong, and deny intuition, even when it’s right. Men,
of course, have their own version of intuition, not so light and
inconsequential, they tell themselves, as that feminine stuff.
Theirs is more viscerally named a "gut feeling," but whatever
name we use, it isn’t just a feeling. It is a process more
extraordinary and ultimately more logical in the natural order
than the most fantastic computer calculation. It is our most
complex cognitive process and, at the same time, the simplest.
Intuition connects us to the natural world and to our nature.
It carries us to predictions we will later marvel at. "Somehow I
knew," we will say about the chance meeting we predicted, or
about the unexpected phone call from a distant friend, or the
unlikely turnaround in someone’s behavior, or about the violence
we steered clear of, or, too often, the violence we elected not
to steer clear of. The Gift of Fear offers strategies that help
us recognize the signals of intuition--and helps us avoid denial,
which is the enemy of safety.
Question: Your latest book, Just 2 Seconds, has been called a
"masterpiece" of analysis on the art of preventing assassination.
It contains an entire compendium of attacks on protected persons
across the globe. What motivated you to put together such a
definitive reference? What tenets can be applied to one’s
everyday life?
Gavin de Becker: Most of all, we wrote the book we needed. My
co-authors and I had long looked for an extensive collection of
attack summaries from which important new ins could be
harvested. Unable to find it, we committed to do the work
ourselves, eventually collecting more than 1400 cases to analyze.
Many new ins and concepts emerged from the study, and the
one most applicable to day to day life, even for people who are
not living with unusual risks, is to be in the present; pre-sent,
as it were. Now is the only time anything ever happens--now is
where the action is. All focus on anything outside the Now (the
past, memory, the future, fantasy) detracts focus from what’s
actually happening in your environment. Human being have the
capacity to look right at something and not see it, and in
studying such a crisp event--the few seconds during which
assassinations have occurred--Just 2 Seconds s to enhance the
reader’s ability to see the value of the present moment.
(Photo © Avery Helm)