Exploring Interprofessional and Self-Compassion Competencies for Applied Behavior Analysis Professionals: A Qualitative Study
ABA staff are harder on themselves than on clients, but a short group-plus-coaching program flips that script.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Friedman et al. (2025) ran small group interviews with ABA professionals. They asked how people see teamwork and kindness at work.
The team used the same 4-month training used in Friedman et al. (2024). This time they wanted stories, not numbers.
What they found
Three clear themes popped out. First, workers say they are kinder to clients and co-workers than to themselves.
Second, they blame the ABA culture for making teamwork hard. Third, they want bosses and classes to teach these soft skills early.
How this fits with other research
Friedman et al. (2024) already showed the 4-month course raises test scores. The new paper tells us why scores went up: people finally had a safe place to talk about feelings.
LeBlanc et al. (2020) and Plattner et al. (2023) both found most BCBAs graduate with zero training on warm relationships. The 2025 study echoes that gap and adds that workers notice the same hole.
Slowiak et al. (2022) linked self-care to less burnout. The new data say self-kindness is the missing piece inside those self-care plans.
Why it matters
You can copy the free 4-month plan: monthly small-group chats plus one-to-one coaching. Start by asking staff to share one moment they were hard on themselves this week. That tiny step builds the self-compassion muscle and lifts teamwork without buying new software.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Interprofessional collaboration, or effective, emotionally responsive teaming between professionals, consists of several skill sets including strong communication skills, compassion and shared knowledge, and can enhance client goal attainment. The field of applied behavior analysis has recently focused on improving capacities of interprofessional collaboration and compassion among its professional workforce. Few studies have reported on perceptions of behavior analytic professionals vis a vis these skill sets in clinical settings. The purpose of this study was to describe participant perceptions of interprofessional collaboration and compassion in the context of applied behavior analytic practice. Following IRB approval, a total of 24 applied behavior analysis practitioner participants were recruited in two cohorts, all of whom participated in a 4-month long training-and-coaching intervention on interprofessional, compassion and self-compassion competencies. Qualitative data consisted of 13 recorded transcripts, including a needs-assessment focus group, as well as each training and coaching session, collected to gain understanding in how participants perceived these competencies. Transcripts were independently coded and analyzed via multistep reflexive thematic analysis by a pair of researchers. Ongoing qualitative analysis yielded the following themes: Historical Perspectives: How We Got Here, More Compassionate to Others Than to Self, Old me versus New me. This study revealed perceptions of barriers and supports embedded systemically in behavior analytic training and culture, affecting development of a collaborative and compassionate behavior analytic workforce. This work highlights the importance of qualitative methodology to enhance research in emerging practice areas through analysis of lived experiences.
Behavior Analysis in Practice, 2025 · doi:10.1007/s40617-024-00991-5