Living Control Systems Publishing; dedicated to Perceptual Control Theory, a new conception of how all living things function
  
 

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Behavior: The Control of Perception
     “Powers’ manuscript, Behavior: The Control of Perception, is among the most exciting I have read in some time. The problems are of vast importance, and not only to psychologists; the achieved synthesis is thoroughly original; and the presentation is often convincing and almost invariably suggestive. I shall be watching with interest what happens to research in the directions to which Powers points.” —Thomas S. Kuhn
    
“Here is a profound and original book with which every psychologist—indeed every behavioral scientist—should be acquainted. It is delightful to have a person of such varied and unorthodox background come forth with a unique theory of the way in which behavior is controlled in and by the individual, a theory which should spark a great deal of significant research.”—Carl R. Rogers

© 1973, 2005 William T. Powers. 332 pages, 6x9 inches, illustrated, paperback, Benchmark Publications, New Caanan, CT. ISBN 0-9647121-7-2


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People as Living Things
—The Psychology of Perceptual Control

    “I started reading your book to see whatever you have to say about systems. Then I really got fascinated by your book and read it from start to finish. Very impressive! And a feast of recognition where you say that integrating PCT into your thinking does not come overnight but takes years. Your knowledge of the psychological literature is enormous and the way you linked PCT thinking with that literature (or discussed it against the background of that literature) was very instructive to me.” —Frans X. Plooij, Director, International Research-institute on Infant Studies (IRIS), The Netherlands

    © 2003 Philip J. Runkel. 539 pages, 8.25x11 inches, illustrated, paperback. Living Control Systems Publishing, Hayward, CA. ISBN 0-9740155-0-4


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The Method of Levels— How to do
Psychotherapy Without Getting in the Way

    "I've just finished the Method of Levels, and I'm astonished, delighted, and inspired. I was a psychotherapist for many years, using a variety of approaches (predominantly Gestalt Therapy, several versions of family therapy, and more recently Psychology of Mind), and while my clients were often happy with the results, I frequently wasn't. My fundamental dissatisfaction arose from the fact that I never knew WHY we were successful when we were, and what had gone wrong or failed to go right when we weren't. Now I think maybe at last I know." — Kalen Hammann, Ph.D.

    © 2006 Timothy A. Carey. 200 pages, 8.25x11 inches, illustrated, paperback, with MOL DVD. Living Control Systems Publishing, Hayward, CA. ISBN 0-9740155-4-7


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The Wonder Weeks—
Eight predictable leaps in your baby’s mental development

    Vanderijt and Plooij's work on infant development has enormous value for clinical use and scientific application. Not only have they explained the periods of puzzling, difficult behavior in infancy which so worry parents, they have also shown how these behaviors mark developmental leaps and have described the stages in the infant's understanding. Together, this gives parents and professionals soundly based insight into babies' developing minds. What's more, Vanderijt and Plooij have described the play and communication that work best with babies at different ages and thus helped parents understand and connect sensitively with their babies. This parent-child connection is the major prerequisite for the development of secure, well-adjusted children. The Wonder Weeks is essential reading for everyone who works with infants pediatricians, social workers, psychologists, and, of course, parents.
    —John Richer, Ph.D., Dip. Psych., principal clinical psychologist, department of pediatrics, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, England
    By Hetty Vanderijt, Ph.D. and Frans Plooij, Ph.D (2008). 348 pages, 6.7x9.6 inches, illustrated, paperback. Kiddy World Promotions B.V., The Netherlands. ISBN 978–90–79208–01–2.


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Management and Leadership:
Insight for Effective Practice

    When i first learned of PCT about seven years ago, I read everything I could get my hands on and your articles, for me, most clearly explained PCT. Somehow, your unique use of language, (perhaps it's more humanizing?) allowed me to understand it better, whereas much that was written (that seems to be changing) is so technical. The result being, if one has not mastered PCT language one becomes lost—at least for a time. Your explanations revealed PCT almost immediately for me. — David Hubbard, LMHC

    © 1994-2008 Dag C. Forssell. 92 pages, 8.25x11 inches, illustrated, comb bound. Living Control Systems Publishing, Hayward, CA. ISBN 0-9740155-5-5


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Casting Nets and Testing Specimens
— Two Grand Methods of Psychology

    
The spring semester is nearly half completed. I am using your book in two classes. My experience this year is identical to that last year., when I wrote to you, "As time passes … I am increasingly convinced that your book ranks alongside Bill's [Powers] book in 1973 as a seminal work in the new behavioral science." So it is. —Tom Bourbon, 1991

    © 1990, 2007, Philip J. Runkel 8.25x11 inches, illustrated. Living Control Systems Publishing, Hayward, CA. ISBN 0-9740155-7-1


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Making Sense of Behavior
— The Meaning of Control

    
For almost a century, it has been the custom among American psychologists to seek to understand human nature by watching what people do. Most books about human nature focus on human doings; they focus on nameable acts with beginnings and endings. Consider a television set. What does a TV do? It shows us moving pictures on its screen; that is the "behavior" we see. But we could spend an entire lifetime studying the action on the screen and never come to understand a thing about how a TV functions. This book does not focus on visible acts. It focuses on perception. It shows us how action comes about if and only if we find a discrepancy between what we are experiencing and what we want to experience. — Philip J. Runkel.
    ©
1998 William T. Powers 180 pages, 5.5x8.5 inches, paperback, Benchmark Publications, New Caanan, CT. ISBN 0-9647121-5-6


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Living Control Systems
    14 previously published papers, 1960-1988.
    The control theory viewpoint has gained many supporters in recent years because of its rigor, its beauty, and its explanatory abilities. This viewpoint was first developed by William T. Powers in the papers in this book.

    © 1989 William T. Powers 295 pages, 5.5x8.5 inches, paperback, Benchmark Publications, New Caanan, CT. ISBN 0-9647121-3-X


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Living Control Systems II
    22 Previously unpublished papers, 1959-1990.
    Powers critiques the theories of mainstream behavioral scientists, showing how their defects are avoided by applying control theory instead. He also demonstrates the need for truly generative models if a genuine science of living control systems is to be developed.

    © 1992 William T. Powers 275 pages, 5.5x8.5 inches, paperback, Benchmark Publications, New Caanan, CT. ISBN 0-9647121-4-8


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The Powers—Runkel Letters
    Phil Runkel began the very first, six-page letter, July 23, 1985, this way:
"I hope this letter reaches you. Some years have passed since your article Quantitative analysis of purposive systems was published in the Psychological Review in 1978. I was captivated by it when it first came out, but I have only recently got round to studying it with care. I am still captivated by it."     Powers responded: "Your letter implies a pleasant project, which I will undertake immediately—that is, now. More or less in the sequence of your letter:"
    Thus began a delightful, five year correspondence—a tutorial in PCT.
    ??? pages, 8.25x11 inches, paperback. Living Control Systems Publishing, Hayward, CA. Scheduled for 2008.

 

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Behavior: The Control of Perception—Chinese
    
At the end of 2002, we found the book Behavior: Control of Perception by William T. Powers. After close reading of the book, we hold that Powers' PCT is a further development on the basis of Wiener's classical cybernetics, and with many innovations in theory and practice, is superior to the latter in the delicate illustration of the control mechanism scheme, in the creation of the new concept about purpose, that is, reference signal, in the hierarchy of the control of human perception, in its application in biology, computer science and cognitive science, and so on. — President Yan Zexian and Fan Dongping, Professors, Philosophy, South China Normal University; Zhang Huaxia, Professor, Philosophy, Zhongshan University.
    © 2004 Wi
lliam T. Powers. 317 pages, 6.5x9.5 inches, illustrated, paperback. Guangzhou, China. ISBN 7-5361-2996-3


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Introduction to Modern Psychology
The Control-Theory View

    Suitable as the primary text for introductory college-level psychology courses and for independent study, this textbook provides a unified approach to the entire field of psychology, from laboratory studies of animal behavior, through ethology and studies of human social behavior, to clinical work.

    © 1990 Richard J. Robertson and William T. Powers. 220 pages, References & Index, 8.5x11 inches, illustrated, paperback, Benchmark Publications, New Caanan, CT. ISBN 0-9647121-6-4


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Mind Readings
Experimental Studies of Purpose

    This is a book that can show a willing psychologist how to do a new kind of research. The theme that runs through all these papers is modeling, the ultimate way of finding out what a theory really means. Richard Marken is a skilled modeler, as will be seen. But he has a talent that goes beyond putting ideas into the form of working simulations, a talent that can be admired but is hard to imitate. He finds the essence of a problem and an elegantly simple way to cast it in the form of a demonstration or an experiment. — William T. Powers.

    © 1992 Richard S. Marken, 222 pages, 5.5x8.5 inches, illustrated, paperback, Benchmark Publications, New Caanan, CT. ISBN 0-9624154-3-X


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More Mind Readings
    
This book expands on Marken's first book, Mind Readings, by venturing further into speculative modeling and even criticism, both ventures being successful and thought-provoking. His great talent for organizing complex subjects into comprehensible models—and then showing that the models actually work—is evident and as satisfying as it was in the first volume. Despite its being far ahead of its time, this book is essential reading for anyone who wants to know where psychology is, or should be, headed.
    William T. Powers, author Behavior: The Control of Perception

    © 2002 Richard S
. Marken, 210 pages, 5.5x8.5 inches, illustrated, paperback, new view, St. Louis, MO. title page says ISBN 0-9704701-7-7, cover says ISBN 0-944337-43-0


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Freedom From Stress
    Ed's aim in this book is first to teach control theory in terms that are relevant to ordinary life and the problems of real people who aren't theoreticians. In this book he slants the message toward the specific problem of stress: what it is and what people can do to free themselves of this difficulty. He is convinced, and I agree, that the basic task is to understand what is going on, not to prescribe some pill or procedure that will work like a cold remedy. Out of understanding will come awareness of what has to change. And then the change will come about naturally. —William T. Powers

    © 1989, 1993 Edward E. Ford, 220 pages, 5.5x8.5 inches, illustrated, paperback, Brandt publishing, Scottsdale, AZ. ISBN 0-9616716-1-0


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Fundamentals—Discipline for Home and School
    
In this latest book in Ed Ford's series on RTP, the focus is on change. How do people change their ways? What are good ways to make change possible? In particular, how should the key person in the RTP system, the teacher in the Responsible Thinking Classroom or RTC, deal with students sent there to think about their infractions and to plan how to avoid them in the future? It was seeing a poorly run RTC that got Ed Ford to ask these questions, and this book is the result of his cogitations and enquiries that propose some answers. —From Foreword by William T. Powers

     © 2004 Edward E. Ford, 93 pages, 5.5x8.5 inches, paperback, Brandt publishing, Scottsdale, AZ. ISBN 0-9616716-9-6


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PCT CD
    
CD holds an up-to-date copy of the Living Control Systems Publishing website. Suitable for people with a slow or no Internet connection. Available separate.


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DVD: PCT supports TQM 

This 1993 presentation of PCT to a Deming Users Group, reports on results from using an approach to management based on PCT, demonstrates the Rubber Band experiment, and relates the principles of TQM to PCT.

Living Control Systems Publishing, Hayward, CA. ISBN 0-9740155-5-5




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DVD: Rubber Band Demonstration

This dramatization of the Rubber Band Demonstration was produced in 1993. Includes illustrated script booklet.

Living Control Systems Publishing, Hayward, CA. ISBN 0-9740155-5-5




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© 2008 Living Control Systems Publishing
Dag Forssell, Publisher
2740 Gamble Court, Hayward, CA 94542
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