“The Gift Of Fear,” a psychology book written by Gavin De Becker, is an extremely useful and informative read. It gives valuable advice about how to act upon human intuition, how to recognize threats, and defines what real fear is and it’s purpose. I found the book to be extremely interesting. This book provided me with a sense of understanding on violence and fear and I feel much better prepared when it comes to recognizing dangerous situations.
My favorite part of the book was the warning signs to know when a stranger is a potential threat. This was fascinating to me because I’ve been told since I was just a little boy to beware of strangers. But with all these warnings about strangers I had never been told how to recognize when a …show more content…

Fear forced her to make and act upon her decision to quietly escape. Fear made her realize that she would certainly die if she didn’t at least attempt an escape. Something that the author did well was explaining how senseless acts of violence can actually make a lot of sense. Violence is almost never random; there is usually a cause and effect for the acts. An example in the book that illustrated this clearly was the story of a man who murdered his parents, shooting his father in the eyes, and than shot a water heater before leaving the house to continue his murderous rampage. Gavin De Becker discovered that when the murderer was a boy his father would always scrutinize and keep an eye on him. Even when he was away at work he would make his neighbor watch the boy so that his “eyes [stay] at home.” The murderer was tired of the scrutiny of his father and his constant surveying of his life, hence the shooting of his father’s eyes. Also when the murderer was a boy his mother became extremely angry with him and pushed him into the water heater, permanently scarring his leg. This incident caused great anger within him, the reason for the shooting of the water heater. These violent acts were symbolic and represented his motives to kill; a senseless act of violence can make a whole lot of sense. .
A part of “The Gift Of Fear” that I found to be the very interesting was when the author explained the