Life and Work with Amy-Beth Fischoff

Today we’d like to introduce you to Amy-Beth Fischoff.

So, before we jump into specific questions about what you do, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
My interest in families began with my own family. In my family of four, I was the mediator, the neutral party, the one that everyone could talk to when they couldn’t talk to each other. It was more responsibility than a child that age should have held, but it did plant seeds that came to fruit much later.

As a young adult, I turned my attention to art, photography and theatre. I spent 20 years in the arts, the last twelve as the Director of an art gallery on 57th st. in New York City, selling expensive artwork to well-heeled collectors. It was a fun and lucrative job but lacked a depth of purpose that after 12 years felt like a spiritual drought. I woke up one morning ( literally!) and I realized that something essential to me would wither and die if I didn’t change my daily work, but I had no idea of what I should do. I had read Carl Jung’s memoir, Memories, Dreams and Reflections, where he described abandoning his association with Freud and being at a loss as to what would come next for him. What helped him connect with his deeper wishes (and paved the road for all the amazing work around dreams, archetypes and collective unconscious), was playing like a child – building sandcastles in his back yard as a path to contacting his more essential self. I was touched by this vision, but having no back yard in New York City, I took to wandering around Central Park, building artistic altars out of found materials at the base of trees in the park. Playing and letting my subconscious wander turned out to be a potent remedy for me as well.

During this time, I would also hang out in nearby playgrounds watching parents and nannies and children interact with each other. Observing the connections ( and disconnections!) that took place between adults and children, my interest in family dynamics was rekindled and I decided to look for a program that might feed that interest as a possible life pursuit. I found the perfect fit at Bank Street College of Education’s Infant and Family Development and Early Intervention program. I acquired knowledge, insight, and passion that I carry to this day. At the end of my Master’s program, I was fortunate to obtain a position as Lead Teacher and then Assistant Director in the Child and Family Center at Rockefeller University, in their state of the art Infant/Toddler program. I spent four incredibly happy and fulfilling years there, leaving the Center when I gave birth to my daughter Zoe.

Contrary to my imagined experience of what motherhood was going to be like for me, I was gobsmacked by the reality of day to day motherhood. Becoming a parent blew the lid off every identity I had ever clung to. It was one thing to compassionately deal with other people’s children and another to experience the emotional roller coaster of being a mother myself. I came to the conclusion that parenthood was Nature’s way of providing us with organic psychotherapy. I found myself living that role, digging deeply into my own psychic recesses to root out the conditioned ideas and knee jerk responses that seemed to come barreling to the surface when faced with the formidable task of parenting a young child. I searched for help and answers. I was fortunate to be invited to study pre and perinatal psychology with Karlton Terry. In his experiential workshops, I got the opportunity to unravel some of the significant emotional patterns in myself that had been generated in my own birth journey. After finishing the four-year course, I worked with Karlton in his Family Clinic, helping parents whose babies had experienced some version of trauma in their births. I saw how helpful it was to children when parents understood the impacts of gestation and birth on behavior and character.

Love-based parenting paradigms provided the next step in my research and development. Heather Forbes and Brian Post (Beyond Consequences, Logic and Control) were among the first to espouse the radical idea of looking at children’s behavior as information instead of as a problem, addressing the source of behavior instead of the manifestation. I was so taken by the ideas that I took their course to become certified in their parent coaching methods. Enlarging on this knowledge base was the work of Leslie Potter of Purejoy Parenting, who led me on a path of self-inquiry as a response to being triggered by my child’s behavior. As I worked on myself in this way, my relationship with my daughter shifted from one of frequent stress to a source of mutual enjoyment. Eventually, I found I had absorbed enough self-knowledge, combined with my depth and breadth of experience with parents and children, and my own mothering experience, to offer myself as a resource to others who felt as rocked to their roots as I was by the intensity of the parenting journey. Thus “Family Harmony with Amy-Beth” was born.

It has always seemed strange to me that for the most important thing one can do in this life (in my opinion), which is to be a guide and model for the next generation, there is no formal education, much conflicting information and very little support in this strange configuration of far-flung nuclear families that our culture has endorsed. In my work, family by family, I hope I am in some small way, addressing that gap.

Has it been a smooth road?
It has been a fairly smooth, if circuitous road. Not always easy to see the connection between a New York City gallerist and a Colorado parent coach! But what made me successful as an art dealer are still the tools I use today – a genuine curiosity about people and their lives and interests, a robust sense of humor, and an intuitive understanding of how to connect quickly and deeply with others.

What do you do, what do you specialize in, what are you known for, etc. What are you most proud of? What sets you apart from others?
My approach is different from many parent coaches in that my focus is not on modifying behavior in children but to guide parents towards seeing what their child is trying to communicate through their behavior and to investigate their own responses. When a parent comes to me for support, in general at first, they are concerned about their child’s behavior and how to modify it or get it to stop because the parent is experiencing discomfort around their children’s manifestations. However, what we come to understand in the course of working together is that when a parent is feeling upset with their child’s behavior, they need first to deal with their own triggers, which often emerge from dashed expectations or the conditioned responses that come from their own history and family of origin. When they come to clarity about what is going on for them and gain the tools to cope with their own discomfort, then there is a much more spacious platform in which to understand the underlying messages that their child’s behavior is communicating and the ability to address those issues more directly and simply, and from their own self-love and forgiveness, as underneath the anger at their children is often self blame. Parents and children are in an emotional field together, and it just takes one person in that field to shift perspective for the whole field to shift. It is kind of a miracle that takes place. I also offer what I call “Therapeutic Child Care”, where I will spend some time with a child to understand better what parents are experiencing, and to see how the child responds to an impartial adult. If there is serious dysregulation in the child’s affect, I might see the child regularly over a longer period to be a regulating presence and resource for them as well.

What advice would you give to someone at the start of her career?
Believe in yourself and your gifts. If you value your own gifts, others will follow your example.

Contact Info:

• Website: amybethfischoff.com
• Phone: 3035795581
• Email: abfischoff@gmail.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FamilyHarmony/?modal=admin_todo_tour

Image Credit:
Jeff DiPallo, Holly Wilder, SarahKate and Rob Butterworth

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