Quotes from Gavin de Becker

If we are looking for some specific, expected danger, we are less likely to see the unexpected danger.

Denial is a save-now-pay-later scheme, a contract written entirely in small print, for in the long run, the denying person knows the truth on some level, and it causes a constant low-grade anxiety.

One of our closest relatives in nature, the Bonobo ape, long ago learned what these programs prove: that female alliances are the key to safety. When a female Bonobo is bullied by a male, other females will chase him off.

In his reply, Freud agreed "unreservedly," adding that human instincts could be divided into two categories: "those which seek to preserve and unite, and those which seek to destroy and kill." He wrote that the phenomenon of life evolves from their "acting together and against each other.

I encourage people to remember that "no" is a complete sentence.

A woman is expected, first and foremost, to respond to every communication from a man.

In (sad) fact, if a full jumbo jet crashed into a mountain killing everyone on board, and if that happened every month, month in and month out, the number of people killed still wouldn't equal the number of women murdered by their husbands and boyfriends each year.

That's what happens when you're angry at people. You make them part of your life." —Garrison Keillor

No amount of logic can usually move a battered woman, so persuasion requires emotional leverage, not statistics or moral arguments. . . .I have seen their fear and resistance firsthand . . . I believe it is critical for a woman to view staying as a choice, for only then can leaving be viewed as a choice and an option.

I encourage women to ask other women for help when they need it, and it's likewise safer to accept an offer from a woman than from a man. (Unfortunately, women rarely make such offers to other women, and I wish more would.) I

Their lives are literally on the line in ways men just don't experience.

Worry, wariness, anxiety and concern all have a purpose, but they are not fear. So any time your dreaded outcome cannot be reasonably linked to pain or death and it isn't a signal in the presence of danger, then it really shouldn't be confused with fear. It may well be something worth trying to understand and manage, but worry will not bring solutions. It will more likely distract you from finding solutions.

One way to charm is with the smile, which Eckman calls the most important signal of intent. He adds that it is also "the typical disguise used to mask the emotions.

Anxiety, unlike real fear, is always caused by uncertainty.

The Scriptwriter is the type of person who asks you a question, answers it himself, then walks away angry at what you said.

TIME syndrome, which is the introduction of threats, intimidations, manipulations, and escalation.

The institutions of psychiatry, law enforcement, and goverment have proved that no matter what our resources, you cannot reliable control the conduct of CRAZY PEOPLE. It is not fair, but it is so

We must learn and then teach our children that niceness does not equal goodness. Niceness is a decision, a strategy of social interaction; it is not a character trait. People seeking to control others almost always present the image of a nice person in the beginning. Like rapport-building, charm and the deceptive smile, unsolicited niceness often has a discoverable motive. Kelly

Americans are experts at denial, a choir whose song could be titled, "Things Like That Don't Happen in This Neighborhood.

because my childhood became all about prediction, I learned to live in the future. I didn't feel things in the present because I wanted to be a moving target, gone to the future before any blow could really be felt.

Restraining orders (often called TRO's) have long been homework assignments police give women to prove they're really committed to getting away from their pursuers.

Just as some things must be seen to be believed, some must be believed to be seen.

a good exercise when worrying is to ask yourself, What am I choosing not to see right now? Worry may well be distracting you from something important. For

I've heard many times that people would make a comment, 'This looks like a bomb,' and still open it. That's one for the psychologists to answer.