One Plus Ten From Doc Ken's Pen
1. Closeness without Control
2. Seeing Ourselves As We See Others See Us
3. The Gray Area Of Psychological Abuse
4. Psychologically Speaking: What Are We Really Saying?
5. Don’t Like The Way It Is - Change It
6. We’ve Got Personality
7. Don’t Be A Stranger (To Yourself)
8. The Art And Efficacy Of Managing Person Perceptions
9. In Defense Of Defensiveness
10. The Incomparable Spunkerface and Co.
11. Lamenting The Loss Of Loyalty

Closeness without Control:
The key to a loving reciprocal relationship
of assertive independent equals

This book is written for you who once had, still have, or are hoping to have a meaningful and fulfilling relationship. Whether you have been in the same long-term relationship that continues up to the present and are wanting to increase the closeness and decrease the control ...

OR, you may be seriously considering ending your relationship because there is too much control and not enough closeness ...

OR, your relationship has ended because there was a lack of closeness and an abundance of control and you do not knowingly wish to repeat yourself if or when you start looking for a new relationship ...

This Book's For You!

ORDER ON AMAZON - paperback         ORDER ON AMAZON - ebook

ORDER FROM DOC KEN - paperback - FREE SHIPPING!

Seeing Ourselves As We See Others See Us
Our Personality Develops Through Person
Perception and Self-Experience

This book has Three Parts to it. Three Time Frames - Past, Present, Future.

Ask Three Questions:
1. How did we become the way we are? (Past)
2. What way are we? (Present)
3. How do we become the way we want to be? (Future)

In this Book, I operationally define the aspects of a person we attend to when making perceptual judgments. (Note: Perceptual judgment are not the same as value judgments - Let’s not confuse them.)

Three Kinds Of Person Perception are involved in our personality development:
1. Our perception of others
2. Our perception of their perception of us
3. Our perception of ourselves


ORDER ON AMAZON - paperback         ORDER ON AMAZON - ebook

The Gray Area Of Psychological Abuse
Abusee? Abuser? Or Both?
How Can We Tell?
What Can We Do?

Sometimes we use the metaphor of color when some things are not as clear as others - Thus we say our perceptions are not black or white but gray.

So it is with psychological abuse. Physical and sexual abuse we say are black or white. But other forms of psychological abuse like verbal, mental, emotional abuse are not as easy to see (By the perpetrator or the victim) for the damage they have done - Hence they fall into the gray area.

Equally hard to see is the part we play when our perception is in the gray.

Are we the abusee, the abuser or both? I address this when I give insights regarding how we can tell. And then once we know where we come down - I can help us change - i.e. If we really want to change.


ORDER ON AMAZON - paperback         ORDER ON AMAZON - ebook

Psychologically Speaking:
What Are We Really Saying?
The Music Behind The Music Behind Our Words

Statements - made between persons ranging from some we’ve never heard or read before to those with which we are all too familiar.

I put them out there as they have occurred - with the parties involved; Adult to Adult (A-A), Parent to Child (P-C), Child to Parent (C-P), Parent to Parent (P-P).

I react to the words with a Quip (which should be taken for what it’s worth).

Then comes the Root, which is my opportunity to say what I think is behind the Presenter’s words.

The Perceiver’s Reaction gives me the chance to tell you what I think is behind the perceiver’s reaction.

The Fallout Residual represents what I surmise each may feel as a result of their perceptions of the interactions.

The Remedy is my attempt to bring to the parties involved some positive movement toward a reciprocal resolution.


ORDER ON AMAZON - paperback         ORDER ON AMAZON - ebook

Don’t Like The Way It Is - Change It
Changing Before Or After An Ultimatum

As we look at ourselves, i.e. Our Personality - What don’t we like? As we look at our Other, i.e. Their Personality - What don’t we like? As we look at Our Other looking at us - What don’t they like? As they look at us looking at them - What don’t we like?

We can do the same with the do likes we see in ourselves and in our Other - do likes they see us see in them and we see them in us.

If we like in us what they like in us - that probably doesn’t need changing. The same can be said if it’s the other way around.

What we and they need to consider changing are the don’t likes in each of us that they and we don’t like in ourselves and each other.

Changing begins with ourselves. We can’t change the Other - only ourselves. Our Other has to want to change.

If we change and our Other doesn’t - nor does our Other want to - It may become Giving-the-Other-an-ultimatum-time.

If all we get from the Other is a No Way (to change) then, truly the ball is in our court and we may have to do what we choose to do.

ORDER ON AMAZON - paperback         ORDER ON AMAZON - ebook

We’ve Got Personality
Now What!

Personality is that which distinguishes or characterizes us as a person. Traits are often used to describe a person’s personality.

I prefer to use a person’s needs when referring to their personality. Example: The need to please. Needs may be large, or small, or not yet discovered.

On Axis Two of a five axes diagnosis, I put Personality Tendencies which I equate with Dynamic Needs. Example: The Tendency or Need to Control.

When a need becomes so large in a person’s personality that it dominates their thinking, feeling, and doing - we then have a full blown Personality Disorder. Example: The Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder.

I cover the most common Personality Disorders - giving perceptual cues regarding what one might look for. In addition I give suggestions that may help us reduce the largeness of our relevant personality tendencies or needs to bring more balance to our personality.

Keep in mind, our extremes can be modified to lesser importance, but to become “symptom free” is not attainable (nor realistically desirable).

ORDER ON AMAZON - paperback         ORDER ON AMAZON - ebook

Don’t Be A Stranger (To Yourself)
Go Outside Yourself
To Get Inside Yourself
Then Turn Yourself Inside Out

This book is all about getting to know ourselves better.

Our Other may know us better than we know ourselves. To find out what they may know that we don’t know we need to ask them how they perceive us. That’s the going outside ourselves part.

We go perceptually from outside ourselves to inside ourselves. We take a good look at our Self- Concept (the picture we have of ourselves). How we feel about that picture is our Self-Worth.

We decide (with our Other’s help) what we want to keep - as is - What we want to change. Then take what we like about ourselves (if our Other likes it too, so much the better) and get into the process of presenting it to be perceived - i.e. turning ourselves inside out.

ORDER ON AMAZON - paperback         ORDER ON AMAZON - ebook

The Art And Efficacy Of Managing Person Perceptions
Manipulation In Its Highest Psychotherapeutic Sense

This Book more than any of my Others harkens back to my doctoral dissertation in which I operationally defined the aspects of a person we attend to when making a perceptual judgement: They are...

Appearance - What we see of person that doesn’t move.

Mannerisms, Gestures - What we see of a person that does move

Voice Quality - How we say what we say

Voice Content - What we say

Person Perception is not a science but an art. To get good at it we’ve got to practice it. We can practice it on each other.

Think about it. We have the power to effectively manage the way we are perceived by others. It’s all about presentation.

Figure out how you want to be perceived - Then do your best to present yourself in this manner. Sounds artistic, doesn’t it - Because it is.

The aspect of the person that is most salient to a person perceiving is Voice Tone - i.e. How we say what we say. So watch the tone you use if you want to present your wanting to get close and not control - side of your self.

For example...If you want to be perceived as a kind and caring person and you need some help with this - use as a model someone you perceive as being such and try to emulate their verbal and non-verbal behaviors in your presentation.

ORDER ON AMAZON - paperback         ORDER ON AMAZON - ebook

In Defense Of Defensiveness
Knowing Our Defenses
Lowering Our Defenses
Living With Our Defenses

Freud said our defenses are unconscious. I say only Repression may be considered unconscious - Example: Repressed memories and repressed impulses. All the other defenses we have the capability of bringing to our awareness. I substitute for "defense mechanisms" my more colloquial term - "Defensiveness".

To help us identify the type of defensiveness we may be employing - I describe each in a way that makes it easier to relate to their relevancy for us.

Defensiveness is the perceptual tool we use to reduce our anxiety and preserve our Self Concept such as it is. In short, defensiveness’ job is to distort our perception of ourselves in order to reduce the anxiety of seeing ourselves as we really are.

Lowering our defenses is an important first step in mitigating our perceptual tendency to distort what we see. Getting into the process of lowering our defenses will enable us to see what of ourselves needs changing.

Trusting our perceptions after lowering our defenses will lead us to present ourselves more realistically through the behavioral changes we make.

Living with our defenses is an admission that it would not be possible to live without them. Defensiveness will always be our fall-back option to rely upon to take some of the pressure off- But we will be in control of it rather than it in control of us.

ORDER ON AMAZON - paperback         ORDER ON AMAZON - ebook

The Incomparable Spunkerface and Co.
Heaven Sent - Heaven Bent

I hope that those of you who have read at least one of my Books - most especially - Closeness Without Control - have been put in touch with my softer side, which is accordingly highlighted in that book and this book as well.

This book, which is for all intents and purposes - a Love Story - will be especially appreciated by those of you who have pets and love them and treat them as members of your family.

Up close and personal - the cast includes, Pretty (a blue-yellow budgie), Doobie (a green peach-faced love bird), Cuddles (a white bunny with blue flecked fur, circles of black around his eyes - a lop with those signature ears that not only a mother would love).

Featured in the Starring Role - A black bunny with white feet and a wonderful triangular white nose that immediately told you - It’s me! - Even from a considerable distance - The incomparable Spunkerface - A Netherland dwarf so small when we took him home Barbara held him in the palm of her hand.

Oh - Barbara is my dear wife - The love affair between the three of us began that day and lasted an incredible thirteen and one-half years.

This is our tribute to Spunks who hung in there with Barbara and Ken - amazingly as long as he possibly could - Somehow knowing how much they needed him- and how much he loved them back.

ORDER ON AMAZON - paperback         ORDER ON AMAZON - ebook

Lamenting The Loss of Loyalty
Where Has All The Loyalty Gone?!

- Preface
- Introduction
- Qualities Of Loyalty
- The Origin Of Our Loyalty
- Loyalty Outside Our Primary Relationship
- The Essence Of Our Loyalty Within Our Primary Relationship
- In Our Primary Relationship Love And Faithfulness Abide
- In Our Primary Relationship ... Love And/Or Loyalty
- What’s Going On In Our Relationship?
- Loyalty As Faithfulness
- Up Close And Personal
- Changing Begins With Us
- In Sum

ORDER ON AMAZON - paperback         ORDER ON AMAZON - ebook


Property of K.L. Fischer Publications © All Rights Reserved.