Why I'm Abandoning My BCBA

Why I'm Abandoning My BCBA

As of June 2024, I am no longer a Board Certified Behavior Analyst.

That goddamn certification took me a Master’s degree, years of work, a gnarly exam, and more money than I care to disclose in a public forum. 

I chose it, so why am I ditching it?

This camel has been taking on straw for a long time. I think the answer can only be found if we go all the way back. And I do mean, all the way. 

All The Way Back

Picture a tiny chubby ginger hellion, unable to sit still for any amount of time, communicating in high pitched squeals. Then standing next to her, a seven year old with perfect manners and an expansive vocabulary, practically a miniature adult.

Both of them were me.

I had rituals, rigidity, difficulty communicating, sensory seeking and sensitivity, struggles socializing with peers, the lot. If I were born today, I would have been diagnosed as autistic basically on sight by most professionals. 

But I wasn’t. I was born in the 90s. And I hit the main speaking and walking milestones functionally on time, so everything was deemed just fine.

Better than fine, actually. I was reading at 4. Voraciously by 5. My hyperactivity turned into a laudable ability to sit still for many hours, entertained by my own brain.

Teachers dismissed my mother’s concerns about my development, because I was a model student. Well, I hid books under my desk and raced through nonpreferred assignments so I could get back to them, but I wasn’t causing a fuss. I wasn’t talking out of turn. Honestly, I wasn’t talking to my peers much at all.

Now I don’t fault the teachers for any of this. They did their due diligence in getting me into the various gifted programs the schools could scrape together. What else were they supposed to do? Overworked, underpaid, they couldn’t spare extra attention for a student who, by all accounts, was absorbing the material and keeping her head down. 

Fast forward past middle school, high school, the angst, the mental health diagnoses, all that rich material. Let’s get to college.

College and Beyond

Specifically, second semester, Child Language Acquisition with Professor Morgan. 

We learned about autism. As Dr. Seuss would say, my brain grew three sizes that day.

I called my mom in tears and told her I had found what I wanted to do. I wanted to work with autistic people. They made so much sense to me, and I felt certain I could do so much good work to help them navigate a neurotypical world. Mutual understanding was imminent, I was sure. I didn’t think to apply the label to myself, despite seeing my own life reflected in each diagnostic criteria. That came later.

But how? What profession suited that specific drive?

I did the research. Behavior analysis surfaced time and time again as an evidence-based practice. So into behavior analysis I dove.

First job: a grueling residential position. 14-hour days working with teenage individuals with a variety of diagnoses and high support needs. I observed in person the difference we were making in their lives - the first time our newest resident had a tantrum without hitting her own head, I almost cried with her. Our oldest resident was getting ready to transition to the adult program and as one of her last lesson plans, we taught her how to make her own smoothie for snack. She very clearly looked forward to it every single day.

 Less than a year in, I applied and was accepted to a Master’s program in behavior analysis. Work and school coalesced into an exhausting routine in which there was no time for food or sleep. 

First Doubts

Partway through, I found a critique of behavior analysis online. The author claimed that the whole practice was an unethical smorgasbord of neurotypical expectations. My world was rocked for a hot second, until I began applying each critique to my current job. We didn’t give a shit about “stereotypy” or appearing neurotypical, we were too busy focusing on keeping kids safe. We provided any and all forms of alternative communication methods that could get our clients to communicate what they needed, from modified sign to elaborate AAC devices. Restraints weren’t a behavior change method at our facility, they were a safety practice of absolute last resort. Clearly the author was a victim of deeply unethical practices - a real shame, to be sure, but that didn’t mean the whole field was a wash. Right?

Well, a year or so in, I changed jobs. Now I was working with very little ones, getting lunch breaks, going home at 5. My quality of life soared. But at the same time, this new job didn’t provide the rigorous month-long training of the residence. And I started to see that reflected in the attitudes of my fellow therapists. Sitting still was the order of the day and AAC was a last resort rather than a first line of defense against lack of communication. As a senior staff, I was given the power to write programming and educate staff, but these changes unsettled me somewhat.

My degree program ended, and I moved to Pennsylvania.

The state of behavior analysis here? An absolute shambles.

To get a “behavior specialist” license, one doesn’t even need to have a degree in behavior analysis or a BCBA qualification. The ethics education requirement? 3 hours.

The result is a wilderness of uneven practices, governed by the expectations of the health insurance payors rather than any scientific or ethical standards. 

I worked for three companies in total. Two did their best, one did the bare minimum. 

Throughout, my faith in the field was eroded constantly on the personal and professional front. I supervised people who assigned motivations such as laziness or spite to behaviors and others who lamented the age-appropriateness of clients’ special interests. There was no examining of internal biases, no attempt to reach a mutual understanding. All I could see were adults attempting to impose their will on children based on a DSM listing. One hour of phone supervision a month was entirely insufficient to change minds, despite my best efforts.

I tried to be different. I tried to be a friend to my clients first, to understand them as complex humans rather than a set of symptoms and behaviors. I might flatter myself in thinking I succeeded in a few cases. But was it enough?

On the personal front, I was making new friends weekly through my exposure to the various polyamorous communities. Some people, however, were slow to warm up to me. I found out that, for some of them, my job as BCBA put their guard up. I can’t possibly fault them for that. Their association with the field was professionals who judged and treated autistic people horribly. How were they to know that I was any different? That thought haunted my dreams - was I any different?

The last company I worked for showed promise. I told myself it was a last-ditch attempt to regain faith that the field could be ethically managed, with the well-being of the client placed above maintaining societal norms.

It didn’t work. Within 3 months, I knew I couldn’t do it anymore.

So... What Now?

Despite all of this, I still don’t believe that behavior analysis is inherently unethical. It’s merely a set of principles in and of itself. However, the current application is untenable.

I was taught that these principles were designed and intended for mutual understanding. I wrote essays on assent and consent in treatment. But the reality of the situation is that each practitioner is functionally on their own. With the rampant ableism throughout our society, is it any surprise that most of these practitioners are acting from a place of control? Even those with good intentions are pressured for neurotypical “results” from the client’s family, team, insurance.

Standing up to a client’s parents gets overwhelming, especially when the result is losing clients or getting removed from cases. For every conversation I had about neurotypical expectations, about the mental benefits of stimming and the communication benefits of AAC, another one waited around the corner, just as repetitive and exhausting. 

I’m tired. I’m so goddamn tired.

I still want to do the work. Not the behavior analytic work, but the real work, the disassembling of the neurotypical standards that society attempts to impose. I just don’t believe that I can do that work from within that structure anymore. I thought I could, for a long time. But for me, the label of BCBA undermines the message and validates a currently broken structure.

I’m putting down the super glue and duct tape. I’m getting out my sledgehammer.

I’ll be a “failed BCBA” if that’s what it takes.

Let's take down the system, one brain at a time.

Yours defiantly,

Anneke