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

Behavior analytic considerations of the role of parents in child-focused interventions are moving from a focus on parent adherence to concepts such as parent involvement, concordance, and collaboration. Despite this shift, little empirical work has canvassed the perspectives and experiences of behavior analysts or parents to support knowledge development in this important area of behavior analytic practice. The current study explored the experiences of two behavioral clinicians who are parents of children who have received behavioral intervention, with the aim of informing clinical work with parents. An interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) case study approach was applied, with interviews as the data collection method. Outcomes of the analysis highlight that for participants, the involvement of parents in behavior-analytic interventions relies on successfully navigating a continuum of expertise toward balancing whose knowledge holds more weight across the intervention context. Experiential themes generated in this study emphasize that clinicians who practice humility, listen actively, and value lived experience in establishing and delivering interventions will have the most success meaningfully involving parents in interventions for their children. Clinical implications of these findings are discussed, as well as future research directions.