When Blake Burdack arrived at Barton College from Australia in 2017, he was focused on two things: excelling in his sport and diving deep into his studies.
“I really felt like it was something that I was really hungry for, that kind of environment,” Burdack recalls of his first visit to campus. “The small campus was actually something I found to be exciting, because I knew what I was going there to do. I was going there to learn. I was going there to be good at basketball.”
What he couldn’t have anticipated was how profoundly his Barton experience would shape not just his career trajectory, but his entire philosophy about human connection, growth, and the science of helping others navigate life’s most challenging moments.
From day one, Burdack knew he wanted to major in psychology.What he found in Barton’s psychology department was something he now recognizes as invaluable; dedicated faculty with complementary approaches to understanding the human mind.
“I really lucked out with the personalities in the psychology department,” Burdack explains. He describes how Dr. Sheri Browning brought an analytical, neuroscience-heavy approach through courses like cognitive psychology, while Dr. Tamara Avant and Professor Ashley Gardner offered a more emotionally driven, experience-based perspective.
“The fact that the department was so intimate and close-knit was such an asset,” he emphasizes.
During his time at Barton, he also served as a teaching assistant for Dr. Browning’s “Introduction to Psychology” course, an experience that reinforced his curiosity and helped transform him into what he calls “a lifelong learner.”
That early exposure to sharing and absorbing knowledge would prove crucial to his current work.
Burdack’s decision to double major in psychology and political science was highly intentional, because he saw two disciplines as complementary lenses for understanding human behavior. Political science taught him that people don’t always act purely out of self-interest, and that there are deeper, more complex factors at play in human-decision making.
“People are interesting,” Burdack says simply, explaining his fascination with understanding why people do what they do.
He credits Barton’s liberal arts education with developing what he calls his “mental immune system” – the ability to filter information, compare perspectives, and form grounded opinions based on evidence rather than echo chambers. To his surprise, courses outside of his comfort zone expanded his worldview in unexpected ways.
This openness to diverse perspectives and continuous learning has become central to Burdack’s professional identity. As he puts it, “You don’t want to drink from the same fountain all day every day. You want to make sure that whatever you’re thinking are your ideas, and not just borrowed from someone else.”
Burdack’s senior year at Barton coincided with the global COVID-19 pandemic, a period made even more challenging by a career-ending athletic injury that prevented him from playing his final season. Yet, he found strength in Barton’s community, particularly among fellow international students who understood the unique challenges of adapting to American culture.
“It’s really cool when you’re sitting at a table and talking with people from different parts of the globe who just see the world differently,” Burdack reflects. Those relationships he created, formed over late-night conversations and shared experiences, remain strong today despite time zone differences.
Even before graduating in 2021, Burdack began applying for positions in Radford, Virginia, where he planned to relocate with his wife. His first role was as a mobile crisis responder, a demanding position that thrust him immediately into some of the most difficult moments in people’s lives.
“I was going into people’s homes during probably the hardest moments they could be experiencing and helping them come up with plans to ensure their safety and the safety of others,” he explains. Working specifically with individuals diagnosed with autism, intellectual disabilities, or developmental disabilities, he found himself learning rapidly on his feet.
One particular overnight shift crystallized the weight of his responsibility. Working alone at a crisis home, Burdack spent hours supporting a nonverbal autistic young man through a difficult episode. When he called his supervisor seeking additional help, he received a sobering response: this was the highest level of care available. There was no “next level” to escalate to. “That’s when I had this eye-opening experience. I was like, ‘It really does stop with me,’” he remembers. “I lean on that really hard moment because it shows what I’m capable of.”
That realization – that he possessed the capacity to remain calm and present even in the most challenging circumstances – has become foundational to his work. Burdack learned that staying regulated himself is essential to helping others find their way back to regulation.
After about a year in mobile crisis response, Burdack transitioned to his current position with Radford City Public Schools as a behavior interventionist. Rather than responding to crises, he now works proactively to prevent them, developing programs that help students navigate behavioral and emotional challenges that interfere with learning. The timing was critical—students returning to school post-pandemic had missed essential face-to-face developmental experiences, leading to delays and behaviors that made accessing education difficult. Burdack focuses on creating environments that reduce challenging behaviors while teaching students the skills they need to succeed in the classroom.
Central to Burdack’s approach is a deep understanding of neuroscience and how the brain responds to stress, trauma, and connection. He explains that young children, like newborns, who can’t regulate their body temperature, must learn to regulate their emotions, and they do so by borrowing regulation from others around them.
“It’s a scientific fact that young kids and older individuals will borrow the regulation of others around them,” he explains. “That’s why we seek comfort from trusted individuals, why we feel more comfortable to cry and be vulnerable in front of others.”
This understanding informs everything from his crisis response work to his classroom interventions. “When you’re stressed, you can’t learn,” he emphasizes. “You’re stuck in your midbrain, which is all based around keeping you alive and surviving. Your entire education lives on the surface level of your brain.”
His goal is to help individuals move from reflexive reactions to thoughtful responses, training their nervous system to recognize that not every situation is a threat. He says this work requires deep knowledge of trauma, attachment theory, and developmental psychology, all areas that Burdack continues to study as he completes his master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling from Liberty University.
Currently rounding out his 600 required internship hours in addition to his full time role, Burdack works part-time at Stand Alone Counseling. He sees clients in the evenings, working with individuals ranging from ages 3 to 21 in schools during the day, then shifting to psychotherapy sessions where he can address deeper cognitive and emotional patterns.
He’s interested in attachment theory, which is understanding how children form attachments to caregivers and how to work with individuals who missed those crucial early experiences. Many of his students come from the foster care system without the foundation of secure attachment.
“Without that building block, you’re building a house on sand,” he shares. “Everything else can crumble at the tip of a hat.”
Another area of specialty is working with athletes, where he sees clear connections between sports psychology and childhood development. Both involve play, which he views as essential to emotional regulation at any age.
“Kids learn through play, but we also regulate our emotions through play,” he explains. “Adults are the exact same, except we often use sports or other activities. It’s like hunger; if you push off a meal, you’re going to eat more on your next meal. It’s the same with play. If you neglect play, by the time you get into it, you’re going to binge on it.”
When Burdack thinks about students pursuing careers in mental health or healthcare, his advice is both practical and philosophical. He urges them to understand the different professional paths, including therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers, and to find what they genuinely enjoy. For Burdack, the best thing you can do with your career is “find what makes you happy, makes others happy, and pays the bills. If you find what’s fun and feels like play, you’re not really working all the time.”
He also stresses that education doesn’t end with a degree. As a lifelong learner, Budack is pursuing continuing education in trauma-informed care, where is constantly refining his understanding as the science evolves.
For students entering healthcare fields, he offers a reassuring perspective. “The perceived pressure is exactly what it is – it’s just perceived. Hard moments require simple solutions.” He says often what people need most in crisis is simply someone to witness their struggle and affirm that their response makes sense given what they’re experiencing.
“The most basic thing you can do is just reaffirm someone,” Burdack explains. “No one wants to feel like they’re not in control or that they’re not in touch with reality.”
Burdack attributes much of his success to the foundation Barton provided. The small class sizes meant he never had to compete for attention from professors, a luxury he recognizes many students at larger institutions don’t have. The intimate psychology department allowed him to draw from multiple faculty perspectives, developing a well-rounded understanding of his field. “If you’re really hungry for it, there’s only one excuse for you not to learn, and that’s yourself really.”
As Barton develops its new School of Health Sciences with plans for graduate programs in clinical mental health counseling, Burdack sees his own journey as emblematic of what’s possible when students receive personalized attention and diverse perspectives within a liberal arts framework.
“Creating a program like that is the right step in changing the way we treat health,” he observes. “Treating the whole person no longer looks like just biology and genetics. It’s moving towards a psychosocial spiritual model–-the full person. Having that all in-house further reinforces the benefits of that liberal arts education.”
For Burdack, mental health isn’t optional. Mental health is fundamental to human wellbeing, as essential as physical health. He wishes more people understood that mental health challenges will touch everyone at some point, just as neglecting physical health will eventually take a toll.
He’s particularly passionate about changing perceptions around men’s mental health. At six feet nine inches, Burdack knows he may not look like the typical mental health professional, and that’s exactly why he believes his presence in the field matters.
“I would definitely describe myself as a sensitive human, which doesn’t fit because I’m a gigantic, muscular man,” he acknowledges. “But once you get me talking, you realize I’m just giddy and bubbly, and I’m very vocal.”
Burdack emphasizes that mental health is increasingly grounded in hard science – neuroscience, brain chemistry, and biology – not just “talking about feelings.” “Understanding the sciences helps people recognize that growth comes from discomfort, from doing things that challenge us,” he says. Burdack explains that there’s even a specific brain region, the anterior cingulate mid-cortex, that grows when we do things we don’t want to do – and its size is directly associated with resilience.
“Growth comes from doing things that are uncomfortable, such as talking about things that make you feel uncomfortable,” he shares. “That’s where growth happens.”
His message to current Barton students is simple but powerful: dig in those four years. Use every resource available. Spend time with professors. Join clubs and teams. Build community.
“You’re only there for four years,” he emphasizes. “That’s such a small amount of time to get knowledge that you may not have another opportunity to obtain. You’ll be shocked about what that could do for you.”
For Burdack, the foundation he built has enabled him to make an impact, one conversation, one regulated moment, one student at a time. “I really am competitive to see people succeed,” he says. “When you’ve got enough people doing that, you create a strong community, you create strong families, and in turn, you create stronger people.”
It’s work that matters deeply.
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