Therapy Alone is Not Enough In the Mental Health Space—Here’s Why Behavior Analysts Deserve a Seat at the Table
Let’s be very clear first—I’m not talking about child therapy such as occupational therapy or speech therapy here. I’m also not referring to the more severe mental cases, I’m talking about personal therapy that an adult (or sometimes a parent for a child) seeks out when someone notices “there’s a problem”.
Therapy is powerful—but it’s not the solution to all your problems. And behavior analysts? We’re often undervalued in the mental health and wellness spaces.
As a trauma-informed behavior analyst, I’m trained to analyze the hidden patterns and the why’s behind your struggles. We look at environmental influences, your diet, how people respond to you, your sleep patterns, and your history—everything.
We don’t offer one-size-fits-all too. We offer tools that designed specifically for you—and that’s what makes our scientific approach so different. We’re trained in a variety of instructional methods, which allows us to identify what works best for your unique needs. Our training overlaps with some of the therapeutic and behavioral skills that licensed therapists learn, but it approaches them from an external, environment-focused perspective. Behavior analysts are trained to design and implement interventions based on the science of behavior, not just theories of the mind or emotional processing.
Traditional therapy often focuses solely on the cognitive processes of your mind—that’s why it falls under “mental” health. The therapist’s role is to improve your mental health and help you heal trauma, not necessarily to teach you the skill sets and tools you need to thrive immediately. Therapy creates a safe space to process your struggles, yet it often stops short of teaching you the next steps to move forward.
If you’re going into therapy expecting clear feedback, practical tools, or direct instruction for your life, you may be disappointed. That isn’t always part of a therapist’s training—and you’re unlikely to receive it. These elements are more commonly found in coaching or courses.
Here’s an analogy:
Think of therapy is like tending to the flowers in your garden. When a plant is wilted, therapy waters it, nurtures it, and helps it heal back to life. It creates a safe, restorative space for growth. Behavior analysis goes deeper. It analyzes the soil, the sunlight, the drainage, the fertilizer, the bugs that eat the leaves, even how often you water and what time of day. It studies the entire ecosystem, not just the plant itself. A behavior analyst makes sure your structural environment supports long-term growth—and gives you the tools, broken down step by step, so you can sustain that growth on your own.
While a mental health therapist may consider family dynamics, internalized beliefs, social stigma, and stressors that impact emotional well-being— a behavior analyst considers the antecedent and triggers of your situations, reinforcers, your level of motivation, skills that have not been built, and structural challenges such as unclear expectations. Both consider environmental factors, both are equally important, and both can offer a lens that the other does not.
Let’s dive deeper into this.
Mental health is multifaceted. It’s not just about improving your internal state of mind and body—it also involves:
Learning the life skills you may have never been taught: how to communicate effectively, manage stress, and respond when you feel overwhelmed, angry, or sad.
Understanding the full scope of your environment and how it shapes your daily experiences and challenges.
Pinpointing observable behaviors, measuring them precisely, and making systematic changes through structured interventions.
As someone who has been in therapy for 7+ years and experienced a wide-range of therapeutic modalities, I can attest to how powerful and necessary it is for people who have experienced deep childhood wounds or trauma. To be honest though, while trauma healed many deeper wounds that needed healing, it still never taught me how to maintain the day-to-day skills on how to manage conflict with my husband, how to manage my triggers and stress in the moment, or how to navigate boundaries in work settings. So, I used applied behavior analysis interventions to teach myself in learning these tools. As Andrew Huberman (neuroscientist) often explains: The way to regulate our nervous system and change how we feel is to work backwards. Start with behaviors, because they act as the control panel for shifting how we function. It’s behavior first → thoughts → feelings → perception.
If you’re a mental health therapist you might be thinking “this isn’t mental health”, behavior analysts don’t diagnose—and you’re right, we don’t, but mental health is not just about diagnosing, it’s also about helping an individual thrive. Here is why skill building and behavior change are a necessary part of mental health:
Medical Model Bias
In the U.S., “mental health” has been tied to diagnosis + treatment by licensed professionals.
If it doesn’t fit into a diagnostic framework (DSM/ICD), it’s often not labeled as “mental health,” even if it directly impacts wellbeing. But keep in mind the traditional medical model does not include cultural and historical considerations. It also overlooks external environments and it often neglects skill building. For example, in a medical model, depression might be seen only as a chemical imbalance instead of also being shaped by trauma, stress, or lack of social support. They focus on symptoms rather than root causes. It’s quite contradictory to what licensed therapists are trained to do if you think about it.
Therapy-Centric Perception
Most people think of “mental health care” as therapy or medication.
Skills like communication, conflict resolution, emotion regulation, stress management often get dismissed as “life skills” or “coaching” rather than “mental health care.” But skill building is a necessary part of mental health.
System Limitations
Insurance pays for therapy tied to a diagnosis, not for skill building unless it’s under “rehabilitation” or “autism treatment.” And reality check—behavior analysis does not train in Autism, they train in the science of behaviors. Insurance is not always accurate.
That reinforces the belief that skills training ≠ mental health. Unfortunately, insurance doesn’t care what healthcare professionals do or what type of work they offer. They are there to make money.
Language Problem
If you say: “I teach behavior change strategies,” some hear “productivity coaching” instead of “mental health support.”
But if you say: “I help clients regulate emotions, reduce stress, and apply coping strategies in daily life,” people start recognizing it as mental health–related. The terminology may differ across fields, yet the underlying purpose and goals often overlap. When licensed mental health professionals assert that only their language or frameworks define what belongs to the mental health domain, it risks overlooking the value of complementary approaches.
Why skill building should be seen as mental health:
Skills and behaviors are the control panel for mental health (Huberman’s point: behavior → thoughts → feelings).
Building coping skills and healthy behaviors directly reduces anxiety, depression, trauma responses, and relationship distress.
Without skills + practice, therapy insights often stay theoretical.
In many cultures, wellbeing = ability to function, communicate, and stay regulated—which is skill building
Can we create a truly whole-person approach to health?
Just like holistic medicine addresses both mind and body instead of treating them as separate, why can’t the health and wellness system do the same?
If you’re not familiar with behavior analysis, it’s important to know that behavior analysts are ethically required to collaborate with their clients’ stakeholders. This means they collect data and coordinate with anyone invested in the client’s well-being—whether that’s a therapist, physical therapist, speech therapist, psychiatrist, pediatrician, school staff, or parents.
Mental health professionals likely have similar ethical guidelines, but in practice, collaboration doesn’t always happen as much as it should. Behavior analysts aren’t meant to replace therapists, but they can—and should—play an active role in an individual’s overall well-being. In fact, I would argue that a collaborative, team-based approach that includes behavior analysts is essential for helping individuals truly thrive.
And while some therapists may offer tools to their clients, they aren’t trained in understanding how to cater specific instructional modalities to help the client learn these skills (i.e. discrete trial, behavior skills training, precision teaching, task analysis chain, and more). Plenty of research shows that learning a skill is never simply about “telling” or “suggesting”—it’s through modeling, repetition, practice, and feedback. This is vitally important for supporting specific populations such as the neurodivergent population (which is a common population in the clientele of therapists).
…In the field of Behavior Analysis
This is also why you’ll start seeing more behavior analysts move into the coaching and wellness space—because a big part of our work is educating and teaching practical tools to families. Traditionally, behavior support (or applied behavior analysis) has been associated with autism—primarily due to insurance and the fact that they will only accept our clinical codes with a Autism diagnosis. But do you know what the role of a behavior specialist really is? It’s to teach skills. Whether that means helping a child learn problem-solving or color-matching, or supporting an adult in applying for a job or preparing a meal.
Here’s the thing: autistic individuals are not the only people who struggle with basic life skills. Everyday adults struggle too—with communicating kindly to their partner, managing anger, or figuring out how to organize tasks and goals.
Our role as behavior analysts can be generalized to any population (with the right training). We can teach skills to anyone, anywhere—because that’s the heart of our training.
Let’s also be clear—most behavior analysts still work primarily in the autism field, either because they don’t realize they can branch out or because they want to solely support Autism. Training in mental health, emotional regulation, and even abuse is often missing from traditional behavior analysis programs. So, being a behavior analyst alone does not automatically qualify someone to work in the mental health and wellness space. Adequate training and supervision are still essential.
As a holistic and trauma-informed behavior analyst who values inclusion and mental health, my passion isn’t just exclusive to Autism, its inclusive to anyone who’s ever felt stuck, rejected, unseen, or left out. I don’t know about you, but that includes a lot of people who could use our help. Will you join me in this movement of creating space for behavior analysts in the mental health and wellness field? You can start by sharing this article and speaking up.
My company-Behavior Roots
You might be wondering—what exactly is therapeutic coaching? I use this term to label my services because my approach combines two unique backgrounds: trauma-informed care and my experience as a behavior analyst teaching life skills to children and and adults, and training parents and educators. My training and services goes beyond simply collecting data or analyzing behavior patterns. It’s about creating a safe space where your discomforts, triggers, and avoidance behaviors are understood—and where you feel truly heard and seen.
If this reasonated with you in any way, please share this article, follow me on Instagram at @behaviorroots, or explore my various resources and services on this website to learn more. I am currently working with Asian Connection Hub, to create a wellness directory for those in the ABA field and hope to have this ready by next year.
More Information: For a more clinical lens (especially if you are a mental health practitioner), I recommend reading Camille Kolu’s article on Trauma-Informed Behavior Analysis: Intersections with Mental Health.