How to Chart Your Own Career Path: Session 177 with John McElwee

As far as podcast go, this episode was kind of tough to write a headline for (a task that I probably devote way too much time to doing!). My guest in Session 177, John McElwee, has been in the field - to paraphrase a line from Aubrey Daniels - before there was a field.

John has had a long and productive career that's had some very interesting twists and turns. He's still going strong these days, and learning new things to help individuals with a wide variety of developmental and behavioral challenges.

With that in mind, I suppose an overarching theme in this episode could be thought of as how John charted his own career path. In other words, by being open to new experiences, and actively investing in his professional development, he has been able to do some really interesting things in the field of ABA. So for early career professionals, try to listen to this episode with this in mind.

In this episode, we discuss how John got into the field, the he took a detour in his graduate training to work as a union electrician, the work he did in the area of marriage and family systems, his connections with folks like Drs. Alan Kazdin and Russell Barkely, and lots more.

But in the latter half of the show, we spend a considerable time discussing how John serendipitously discovered Relational Frame Theory by chatting up Dermot and Yvonne Barnes-Holmes at an ABAI conference, and how he saw the benefits of using this approach with individuals with ASD in an Early Intervention context.

Along the way, we discuss the upcoming webinar series that John's doing with Peak Behavioral. If you're interested in learning more about this, it starts in March 2022. You can find information about this webinar series as well as individualized coaching opportunities with John through Peak Behavioral Services' website: www.pkservice.org/purchase. If this is something you're interested in and you'd like to save a few bucks in the process, use the promo code "podcast22" at checkout to receive a discounted price of $79 per webinar.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Check out John's webinar series with Peak Behavior!
• Oregon Social Learning Center.
• Dr. Russell Barkley.
• Dr. Alan Kazdin.
• The Purple Book.*
• Brief Report: The Training and Assessment of Relational Precursors and Abilities (TARPA): A Preliminary Analysis (Moran, Stewart, McElwee, and Ming, 2010).
• Using RFT to Promote Generative Language, Volume 1 (Ming, Stewart, and McElwee).

This podcast is brought to you with the support of:

• The Whoop Strap! I've been wearing the Whoop Strap for over a year now, and I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed getting quantitative information on all aspects of my health, including sleep analytics, heart rate, along with heart rate variability, calorie burn, exercise intensity, and Whoop's proprietary "strain" score. I could extol this neat device's virtues indefinitely to you, but instead, you can go check it out for yourself. To get your first month free, head over to behavioralobservations.com/whoop!
• Institutional Tier Patron Greenspace Behavioral Technology. Greenspace behavior offers cutting edge supervisor coaching, performance and competency-based trainings, and organizational supports for new BCBA and trainees. Find out how you can optimize your supervision practices, improve clinical outcomes, and increase employee satisfaction at Greenspacebehavior.com.
• And of course, the aforementioned Peak Behavioral, where you can sign up for John's webinar series using the discount code, podcast22 at checkout.