Ingrid Tischer
Coaching that believes play is an equal partner to work in lives that are full of joy and leaders who carry their power lightly
My Prime Directive as a coach is:
I will accept all of you as worthy, even the parts you feel are less-than, because what you disown, downplay, or deny could become the secret source of your resilience.
Experience and Education
Am I connected to any coaching programs? Yes, I am. I’m a Coach/Consultant with Imagine Us and I’ve coached with the Sibling Transformation Project.
Am I a certified coach? Absolutely not! Coach training programs that incorporate a deep knowledge of ableism have been hard to find so I’m extremely fortunate to have training from the With/In Collaborative. I incorporate formal coach training with principles learned from Asset-Based Community Development, Joan Williams' concept of the ideal worker, and the social model of disability.
It’s hard to go deep into ableism in a group. I’m no stranger to impostor syndrome and I never thought I would be a coach. Until I looked back on years of talking – secretly - with colleagues who had invisible disabilities. They had needed someone who knew the emotional terrain to help them with problems caused by ableism, and who understood how their fear of disclosing their disabilities meant they couldn’t ask for accommodations. I owe my grounding in anti-ableism advocacy to 11 years as the Development Director for Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, which included doing trainings for non-profits and the philanthropic community.
Messy feelings about disability, illness, and aging won’t insult me. I have a deep and abiding love of asking people nosy personal questions, 50+ years of progressive disabilities, 30 years in small nonprofits, 25 years of social justice fundraising, and 5 years as a certified HIV test counselor and women's health educator, plus decades in the women’s writing community. I have a BA in Philosophy from The American University, in addition to graduating from the California Women's Health Leadership program and serving on the faculty of California Asset-Based Community Development. Most importantly, I know that I wasn't born understanding ableism and that I'm still discovering new stuff, inside and out. We all deserve patience in such a deeply emotional process.
This is coaching, not therapy. Another thing I am definitely not, is a therapist. I am not trained in providing mental health services. My way of distinguishing coaching from therapy is that coaching is for coping with stuff that's coming at you from the outside, whereas therapy is much more about dealing with stuff that originates from inside you. Because disability, chronic illness, and aging are very much health-adjacent, I will be particularly watchful for any veering into therapy territory.