Product Description

True fear is often a signal that can save your life. Are you listening?

• The baby-sitter you've just hired makes you uneasy--what should you do?
  
• You sense you are being followed --do you confront the stranger...or run?
  
• A fired employee says "You'll be sorry"--should you take him seriously?
  
• A person in the elevator you are about to enter just doesn't look right--do you wait for the next car?
  

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 book, Gavin de Becker, the man Oprah Winfrey calls the nation's leading expert on violent behavior, shows you how to spot even subtle signs of danger--before it's too late. Shattering the myth that most violent acts are unpredictable, de Becker, whose clients include top Hollywood stars and government agencies, offers specific ways to protect yourself and those you love, including...how to act when approached by a stranger...when you should fear someone close to you...what to do if you are being stalked...how to uncover the source of anonymous threats or phone calls...the biggest mistake you can make with a threatening person...and more. Learn to spot the danger signals others miss. It might just save your life.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2715 in Books
• Published on: 1999-05-11
• Released on: 1999-05-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780440508830
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
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 guns. 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, police 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

From Library Journal
De Becker, the CEO of a firm that attempts to predict and prevent violence against individuals, shares his informed insights on enhancing personal safety. He believes that violence is part of the human condition and that America is increasingly a violent place. For example, homicide is now the leading cause of death for women in the workplace. De Becker posits that intuition is our most basic and reliable survival skill. When it produces fear?as distinct from worry or anxiety?we should pay attention. Mixing theory with case histories, he discusses stranger-to-stranger crime, obsessive admirers, employee rampages, and spousal crime, as well as the more esoteric categories of celebrity stalkers and assassins. Having suffered an abusive childhood himself, de Becker has a special empathy for victims and an acute awareness of the signs of criminal intent. A valuable contribution on a timely topic, this is recommended for public libraries.
-?Gregor A. Preston, formerly with Univ. of California Lib., Davis
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
De Becker, a national expert on the prediction and management of violence, thinks most people are great victims because they ignore their fears and survival signals. His frighteningly simple advice will come as no surprise to women: use your intuition. De Becker believes every crime has a warning and a motive and that the code of predictable violence can be broken by trusting the phenomenon that he defines as "knowing without knowing why." If people believe in and are alert to the possibility of danger, they can reduce their risks and save themselves. Written with consummate style, the book recounts the motives, warning signals, and defenses against wife beaters, stalkers, assassins, enraged employees, and violent children. De Becker's experience as a presidential adviser, consultant, expert witness, trainer, and designer of a system that evaluates threats to Supreme Court justices should convince readers to trust the involuntary certainty of fear over the voluntary uncertainty of anxiety when confronted by those to whom senseless acts make perfect sense. Patricia Hassler