Therapy Alone is Not Enough—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 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 track your outcomes to make sure you’re truly progressing. Our training also 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.
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 looks at 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 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 are necessary for growth.
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 the basic 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—and I still struggled. I used applied behavior analysis interventions and assist 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.
In recent years, both coaching and therapy have been evolving, and the lines between the two are becoming increasingly blurred. Many therapists are now offering coaching or hybrid services, while more coaches are individuals with legitimate clinical backgrounds rather than just holding a random 2-week long certificate. Because of this shift, it’s more important than ever to teach clients how to advocate for themselves and recognize what to look for in a mental health professional or service—including what I offer through my own work.
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 others.
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.
…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 choose not to. 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 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 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.
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.