“Wearing Two Hats Helped Me Look at the Bigger Picture”: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of Being a Parent and a Clinician in Behavior Analysis

Burney et al. (2025) talked with behavior analysts who are also parents of neurodivergent kids. The team used a method called interpretative phenomenological analysis to dig into how these dual-role clinicians see their work with families.

The interviews uncovered themes about balancing professional know-how with lived experience. The goal was to learn how this double view shapes teamwork with parents.

The big theme: humility. Clinicians who stay humble and treat parents as equal experts build stronger plans and get better buy-in.

Another theme was "wearing two hats." Seeing the world as both parent and clinician helped these workers zoom out and spot gaps in services that single-role staff missed.

McGuire et al. (2025) extends this idea. They trained bilingual grad students to coach Spanish-speaking caregivers in naturalistic teaching. The cascading model puts Burney’s humility into action by letting cultural insiders lead.

Heald et al. (2020) also extends the theme. Their toolkit helps clinicians move from workshop learning to real parent coaching, giving a concrete path for the humble stance Burney calls for.

van Herwaarden et al. (2022) adds numbers. They found that warm alliance-building predicts fewer behavior problems in parent groups. The quantitative data backs up Burney’s qualitative point that relationship quality drives results.

You can try Burney’s Monday move: start each meeting by asking parents to teach you one thing about their child that only they know. Write it down and weave it into the behavior plan. This five-minute habit shows you value lived experience and sets the stage for real teamwork.