50 Psychology Classics (6 page)

What is the best predictor of violent criminality? De Becker's experience is that a troubled or abusive childhood is an important factor. In a study into serial killers, 100 percent were found to have suffered violence themselves, been humiliated, or simply neglected as children. Robert Bardo, who shot and killed actress Rebecca Shaeffer, was kept in his room as a child and fed like the family pet. He never learnt to be sociable. Such people form a warped view of the world—at the public's expense.

Yet violent people can be very good at hiding the signals that they are psychopaths. They may studiously model normality so that they can at first appear to be “regular guys.” Warning signals include:

They're
too
nice.

They talk too much and give us unnecessary details to distract us.

They approach us, never the other way around.

They typecast us or mildly insult us, in order to have us respond and engage with them.

They use the technique of “forced teaming,” using the word “we” to make them and their victim seem like they are all in the same boat.

They find a way to help us so we feel in their debt (called “loan sharking”).

They ignore or discount our “no.” Never let someone talk you out of a refusal, because then they know they are in charge.

We don't have to lead paranoid lives—most of the things we worry about never happen—yet it is foolish to trust our home or office security system or the police absolutely. As it is
people
who harm, de Becker notes, it is people we must understand.

The Gift of Fear
is riveting when de Becker is discussing public figures who are his clients and stalkers' attempts to get close to them. At any one time, a famous singer or actor may have three or four people after them, sending mountains of letters or trying to get through security. Only a small number of these stalkers actually want to kill their target (the rest believe they are in some kind of “relationship” with the star), but the common factor is a desperate hunger for recognition.

All of us want recognition, glory, significance to some extent, and in killing someone famous, stalkers themselves become famous. Mark Chapman and John Hinckley Jnr, for instance, are names forever linked with their targets, John Lennon and Ronald Reagan. To such people assassination makes perfect sense; it is a shortcut to fame, and psychotic people do not really care whether the attention they gain is positive or negative.

The image of a crazed person going after a movie star or president captures the public imagination, but de Becker wonders why are we so intrigued by celebrity stalkers, but are blasé about the fact that, in the US alone, a woman is killed by a husband or boyfriend every two hours. Incidentally, he has little faith in restraining orders, which he says only intensify the situation. Violent people thrive on engagement, and if they are unbalanced anyway, a restraining order will not guarantee safety.

The Gift of Fear
is a very American book, written within a cultural context of the rampant use of guns and a society that puts less emphasis than others on social cohesion. If you live in an English village or a Japanese city or even a quiet part of the United States, the book could seem a little paranoid. However, de Becker blames evening news reports for making his country seem a lot more dangerous than it actually is, noting that we have a much higher likelihood of dying from cancer or in a car accident than as a result of a violent attack by a stranger.

Since the attack on New York's World Trade Center in 2001 we have become obsessed with the possibility of random violence, but most attacks and homicides still occur in the home, and knowing the impending signs of
violence may save you from harm. In terms of personal safety, de Becker says that men and women live in two different worlds. Oprah Winfrey told her television audience that
The Gift of Fear
“should be read by every woman in America.”

In writing
The Gift of Fear
, de Becker was influenced by three books in particular: FBI behavioral scientist Robert Ressler's
Whoever Fights Monsters
; psychologist John Monahan's
Predicting Violent Behavior
; and Robert D. Hare's
Without Conscience
, which takes the reader into the minds of psychopaths. There is now a large literature on the psychology of violence, but de Becker's book is still a great place to start.

De Becker is considered a pioneer in the field of threat assessment and the prediction and management of violence. His firm provides consultation and protection services to corporations, government agencies, and individuals. He headed the team that provided security for guests of President Reagan, and he has worked with the US Department of State on official visits of foreign leaders. He also developed the MOSAIC system for dealing with threats to US Supreme Court judges, senators, and congressman. De Becker has consulted on many legal cases, including the criminal and civil cases against O. J. Simpson
.

He is a senior fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Public Affairs, and has co-chaired the Domestic Violence Council Advisory Board
.

Other books include
Protecting the Gift,
on the safety of children, and
Fear Less: Real Truth About Risk, Safety and Security in a Time of Terrorism.

“[The] marital game of ‘Lunch Bag.' The husband, who can well afford to have lunch at a good restaurant, nevertheless makes himself a few sandwiches every morning, which he takes to the office in a paper bag. In this way he uses up crusts of bread, leftovers from dinner and paper bags his wife saves for him. This gives him complete control over the family finances, for what wife would dare buy herself a mink stole in the face of such self-sacrifice?”

“Father comes home from work and finds fault with daughter, who answers impudently, or daughter may make the first move by being impudent, where-upon father finds fault. Their voices rise, and the clash becomes more acute… There are three possibilities: (a) father retires to his bedroom and slams the door; (b) daughter retires to her bedroom and slams the door; (c) both retire to their respective bedrooms and slam the doors. In any case, the end of a game of ‘Uproar' is marked by a slamming door.”

In a nutshell

People play games as a substitute for real intimacy, and every game, however unpleasant, has a particular payoff for one or both players.

In a similar vein
Thomas A. Harris
I'm OK—You're OK
(p 148)
Karen Horney
Our Inner Conflicts
(p 156)
Fritz Perls
Gestalt Therapy
(p 216)

In 1961, psychiatrist Eric Berne published a book with a very boring title,
Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy
. It became the foundation work in its field, was much referenced, and was a reasonable seller.

Three years later he published a sequel based on the same concepts but with a more colloquial feel. With its brilliant title and witty, amusing categories of human motivation,
Games People Play
was bound to attract more attention. Sales for the initial print run of 3,000 copies were slow, but two years later, thanks mostly to word of mouth and some modest advertising, the book had sold 300,000 copies in hardback. It spent two years on the
New York Times
bestseller list (unusual for a nonfiction work) and, creating a template for future writers who suddenly got wealthy by writing a pop psychology bestseller, the fiftysomething Berne bought a new house and a Maserati, and remarried.