PRESTONSBURG, KY – Bradley Sansom was a senior music major at Morehead State University when he decided to shift lanes.
“I had just started student teaching and while I was working with the kids, I realized they didn’t have anyone to talk to about their problems and the struggles they dealt with,” said Sansom, who works as the primary behavioral health therapist at Highlands ARH Regional Medical Center.
“There was just a lack of counseling in the school system.”
He said he knew he would be able to help as a band director, but, driven in part by his own family history, he felt compelled to do more.
Sansom was nearing his own high school graduation when he lost his father, just 45 years old, lost his life to an overdose.
And just like the students he met during his training, he had had no one to talk to either.
“When I spent time with those kids, I just knew I needed to help,” he said.
So, after graduating with his music degree, Sansom began working as a mental health technician at Mountain Comprehensive Care while pursuing a master’s in psychology from Grand Canyon University.
Sansom’s next stop, working as a substance abuse counselor, did not allow him to directly care for children in the way he initially planned. Instead, he said it provided him with a chance to care for their parents.
“It gave me the chance to help them as they worked to provide a more stable home for their children,” he said.
Sansom said he drew from his own childhood, sharing the story of his own trauma and loss to encourage patients to choose a different way.
“I talked to them as someone who had lost his own father and who had lived through that trauma,” he said. “I told them I didn’t want that for their children. And though I thought it would be difficult to share that, it was super rewarding to watch how it helped.”
During his seven years at Mountain Comp, Sansom earned a doctoral level degree in marriage and family therapy from Liberty University. From there, he spent a year as a travel clinical therapist for a substance abuse program before assuming his role in the Highlands ARH Behavioral Health unit.
In his position, Sansom provides individual and group therapy sessions to psych patients, leads family sessions for those visiting loved ones, completes mental health assessments, provides assistance in the crisis management unit, and responds to any area of the hospital where a therapist is needed for a patient in crisis.
It’s not a position in which Sansom said he ever expected to find himself, but he said it – and ARH – is where he hopes to spend the remainder of his career.
“I’m very grateful for my job and for ARH,” he said. “I feel truly at home here. It’s a family and it’s exactly where I want to be.”
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Sansom, who is currently pursuing a third master’s degree – this time in clinical psychology with a neuropsychology emphasis – was recently named the recipient of ARH’s monthly EDcellence Award, a system-wide recognition of employees who exemplify excellence in education and personal development.
“I’ve never won anything in my entire life,” he said with a laugh. “It’s kind of crazy to get your first award at 32 years old. It feels kind of like winning the lottery.
“I’m very thankful.”
And though he’s spent the better part of his adult life in school, he said he’ll most likely keep going after he finishes his most recent studies.
“I believe in lifelong research,” he said. “I’m always interested in going back and refreshing myself and learning something new.”
Sansom said he knows it’s not always easy to reverse course and set forth on a new path, but he said it’s important to do what feels right.
“You have to follow your heart and follow your mind,” he said. “They’re not independent of one another. They work together.”
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Sansom and his husband Tommy Caldwell, an RN at Paintsville ARH Hospital, have one son, Dawson, a senior in high school who plans to study social work at the University of Pikeville.
