Recognizing Pre-Incident Indicators to Violence could save your life!
“The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence” is a nonfiction, self-help book written by Gavin de Becker. The book demonstrates how every individual should learn to trust the inherent “gift” of their gut instinct or intuition. By learning to recognize various warning signs and precursors to violence, it becomes possible to avoid violence.
The Gift of Fear spent four months on The New York Times Bestseller List and was a #1 National Bestseller. It has been published in 14 languages. The book was endorsed by a wide variety of celebrities, including Oprah Winfrey. Oprah dedicated an hour-long show on the books 10th anniversary.
The book explores various settings where violence may be found—the workplace, the home, the school, dating—and describes what de Becker calls pre-incident indicators (PINS). When properly identified, these PINS can help violence be avoided. When violence is unavoidable it can usually be predicted and better understood.
The Pre-Incident Indicators include:
Forced Teaming. This is when a person implies that they have something in common with their chosen victim. For instance, acting as if they have a shared predicament when that isn’t really true. Speaking in “we” terms is a mark of this, i.e. “We don’t need to talk outside… Let’s go in.”
Charm and Niceness. This is being polite and friendly to a chosen victim in order to manipulate him or her by disarming their mistrust.
Too many details. If a person is lying they will add excessive details to make themselves sound more credible to their chosen victim.
Typecasting. An insult is used to get a chosen victim who would otherwise ignore one to engage in conversation to counteract the insult. For example: “Oh, I bet you’re too stuck-up to talk to a guy like me.” The tendency is for the chosen victim to want to prove the insult untrue.
Loan Sharking. Giving unsolicited help to the chosen victim and anticipating they’ll feel obliged to extend some reciprocal openness in return.
The Unsolicited Promise. A promise to do (or not do) something when no such promise is asked for; this usually means that such a promise will be broken. For example: an unsolicited, “I promise I’ll leave you alone after this,” usually means the chosen victim will not be left alone. Similarly, an unsolicited “I promise I won’t hurt you” usually means the person intends to hurt their chosen victim.
Discounting the Word “No”. Refusing to accept rejection; not recognizing the word “NO”.
The book, “The Gift of Fear” is one of the greatest gifts you can give your child before they go off to college or move out on their own. This book will change their lives in understanding their own “Intuition”, instinct or “Gift of Fear”.