Jul 21 / Dr. Kristyn Peterson, PhD, BCBA, LBA, LSSMBB

Who are you outside of ABA?

This is the first article in a 6-part series on questions to consider during your BCBA career transition.

“So… What Do You Do?”

BCBA considering career transition outside of clinical work
Imagine the scene: You’re at a dinner party where you don’t know anyone. There are no dogs or cats to pet, so you have to make small talk (maybe that’s just a me thing…). You’re sipping your glass of white wine when someone introduces themselves to you and asks, “So, what do you do?”

Do you say “I work with kids with autism” and try to move the conversation along? Or do go the “I’m a BCBA. Have you ever heard of that?” route? You could go “I’m a behavioral therapist”, or maybe “behavioral scientist” is more your speed.

Answering this question doesn’t only help fill the awkward silence between hors d’oeuvres,  but it may also help you understand your professional identity more clearly.

As a field, we have incredibly strong professional identities, but, as you’ll read here, they aren’t particularly flexible or resilient. When we are “stuck to” our professional identity, it can make it hard to:

So, depending on how we use them, those four letters B-C-B-A may have more impact in holding us back than propelling us forward.
  • See new opportunities
  • Communicate with non-behavioral stakeholders
  • Make sure ATS doesn’t throw our application into the digital trash
  • Convince a hiring manager why we’re the person for the job
So, depending on how we use them, those four letters B-C-B-A may have more impact in holding us back than propelling us forward.

The Power of 4 Letters

BCBAs have deeply engrained professional identities, and for good reason. We are proud to have earned our board certified status. At minimum, we: 
  • Received a master's degree
  • Completed 1,500 to 2,000 supervised fieldwork hours
  • Passed a board exam that is notoriously difficult 
Some of us had to publish research, work in labs, or present at conferences. All in, it’s blood, sweat, and tears; metaphorically (and sometimes literally when it comes to blood).

Our professional identity of “BCBA” is shorthand that our field understands, but (often to our dismay) no one else does. Or, if they do they only associate it with autism work. I’ve seen behavior analysts do this over and over again. They can talk about how important it is to disseminate and communicative effectively, but when the rubber meets the road and it’s time to actually talk to people about what we do, we fall back into our deeply entrenched beliefs about ourselves and what the four letters behind our names actually mean.

In Acceptance and Commitment Training (or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, depending on your context; aka “ACT”) we may refer to this as “fusion”. We are stuck to (aka “fused” with) those beliefs:
Becoming a BCBA is hard.
Being a BCBA is something I'm proud of.
I'm a BCBA, and that means I have the knowledge, training and skills to do a lot.

These are all true. 

But, we do a really bad job actually making the case for it. That holds us back from taking on new opportunities outside the clinic where all those skills can really shine.
All I know is autism.
There aren't opportunities outside of autism for BCBAs.
I'm great at this, but I don't know if I'd be great at something else. 

These are thoughts we may be fused with. These ones aren't true at all. 

So, how do we move beyond our four-letter identities, to something that’s more flexible and dynamic for today’s job market?

Here are some questions we think every up and coming (or soon to be) OBMer should be able to answer with their whole chest:
5 questions BCBAs should ask themselves before a career pivot

Here are some ideas to get you going:

So, where does that leave us?

As a BCBA, you should be proud of all the work, effort, and intelligence it took to get those four letters. But, those four letters may also inadvertently be holding you back. It's time to add to how you view yourself as a professional.

Instead of rooting to that as a professional identity, behavior analysts can (and should) explore what their professional identity means to them, and how that can inform how they move forward with their future goals.

If you want to meet behavior analysts like you, or want support exploring these concepts more, check out OBM Jumpstart, or send us a note. We're here to help.