(they, them)

Licensed Clinical Psychologist

Education, Training, and Research

My initial love for working with children and families developed during my tenure as a Master’s student (2012) studying Child Development at the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study & Human Development at Tufts University. Here, I was awarded an Eliot-Pearson Fellowship, which gave me the opportunity to serve as a Preschool Teacher in the prestigious Eliot-Pearson Children’s School (ECPS), an inclusive setting which celebrates the growth and development of each child through Anti-Bias curriculum (Derman-Sparks & Olson, 2010). A large part of this work included facilitating conversations between children and families about different ability, racial, ethnic, religious, linguistic, cultural, family and socio-economic backgrounds. I also facilitated parenting groups on how to help foster children’s developing self-regulation and coping skills. When I was not studying or working in my capacity as a preschool teacher, I worked as a volunteer with inner-city Boston youth and families. At Horizon’s for Homeless children, I cared for children in homeless shelters in a play-based capacity while their parents looked for work and housing. I also worked with Head Start and Project Joy programs by co-leading professional development series on how teachers could talk to students about traumatic loss and develop trauma-focused play-based skills in the classroom.

I received my Ph.D. (2019) in Child Clinical Psychology from The Pennsylvania State University (PSU), where, as a graduate student, I was awarded a two-year Staff Therapist position at their renowned PSU Anxiety Clinic. Here, I specialized in providing evidence-based therapeutic services for youth struggling with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Panic Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD), and Specific Phobia. Alongside my research mentor, I helped develop and evaluate culturally-sensitive, coping-based interventions for poverty-exposed middle-school youth and families. I completed my pre-doctoral internship at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) where I honed my skills in providing trauma-informed care to adolescents (Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), young adults (Prolonged Exposure, Cognitive Processing Therapy), and family members at the National Crime Victims Center (NCVC). At MUSC, I was also closely supervised in the implementation of Parent and Teacher Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT, TCIT) within households and Head Start classrooms where youth behavioral problems were prominent. I then completed my post-doctoral training in the Institute of Child Development and Department of Psychology at the University of Minnesota, focusing on early maltreatment experiences and adolescent risk for suicide and self-harm at multiple-levels-of-analysis (Cicchetti, 2002).

I have been an invited speaker on youth stress and coping processes at a number of prestigious academic institutions and events, including the Center for Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Research (CDASR) at McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School as well as the Clinical Science Colloquia in the Department of Psychology at Indiana University (IU).

My research has shown that coping skills have the power to not only make us feel better, but also to "get underneath the skin" and improve our bodies' biological stress response systems (e.g., hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, sympathetic nervous system, immune system). To learn more, check out my Google Scholar profile for a list of my published work on this topic!

Select Publications

Bendezú, J. J., & Wadsworth, M. E. (2024). Restoration of typical HPA–SAM co-activation following psychosocial intervention among preadolescent youth living in poverty. Development and Psychopathology, 1-17.

Bendezú, J. J., Handley, E. D., Toth, S. L., & Cicchetti, D. (2022). Psychobiological foundations of emotion regulation: Links to maltreatment and depressotypic functioning in a predominantly Black, economically disadvantaged sample of adolescent girls. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 143, 105826.

Bendezú, J. J., Howland, M., Thai, M., Marceau, K., Shirtcliff, E. A., Hastings, P. D., Zahn-Waxler, C., & Klimes-Dougan, B. (2021). Adolescent cortisol and DHEA responses to stress as prospective predictors of emotional and behavioral difficulties: A person-centered approach. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 132, 105365.

Bendezú, J. J., Calhoun, C. D., Findley, A., Patterson, M. W., Rudolph, K., Hastings, P. D., Nock, M. K., & Prinstein, M. J. (2021). Adolescent girls’ stress responses as prospective predictors of self-injurious thoughts and behaviors: A person-centered, multilevel study. Development and Psychopathology, 1-21.

Bendezú, J. J., Loughlin-Presnal, J. E., & Wadsworth, M. E. (2019). Attachment security moderates effects of uncontrollable stress on preadolescent HPA responses: Evidence of regulatory fit. Clinical Psychological Science, 7(6), 1355-1371.

Bendezú, J. J., & Wadsworth, M. E. (2017). If the coping fits, use it: Preadolescent recent stress exposure differentially predicts post-TSST salivary cortisol recovery. Developmental Psychobiology, 59(7), 848-862.