Dr. Bruce Compas
Dr. Bruce Compas is currently a professor and the co-director of clinical training at Vanderbilt University. He obtained his PhD in Clinical Psychology from UCLA in 1980 where he worked with Dr. Howard Adelman. Dr. Compas specializes in clinical psychology, health psychology, and developmental psychopathology. Before he started his current position at Vanderbilt University in 1999, he was a professor at the University of Vermont from 1981-1999.
Dr. Compas’ research is focused on processes of coping and self-regulation in response to stress and adversity in children, adolescents, and adults. He is specifically interested in the relationships of stress, coping, and self-regulation with both physical health/illness and psychopathology, and the development of interventions to enhance the ways that individuals and families cope with stress. Some of his current studies included testing a family cognitive-behavioral preventive intervention for children and adolescents coping with effects of parental depression; communication, coping, and adjustment in children with cancer and their parents; and neuropsychological effects of chemotherapy in pediatric cancer patients.
Dr. Compas has also contributed to the publication of two books: 1) Primary prevention and promotion in the schools and 2) Introduction to clinical psychology: Science and profession. He has also taught undergraduate and graduate level courses. These courses include: Introduction to Clinical Psychology, Psychobiology of Stress and Coping, Pediatric Psychology, and Psychopathology.
Bond, L.A. & Compas, B.E. (Eds.). (1989). Primary prevention and promotion in the schools. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Compas, B.E. & Gotlib, I. (2002). Introduction to clinical psychology: Science and profession. New York: McGraw-Hill.