Kirsten Hauber was born in Leidschendam in the Netherlands on 28 April 1972. She attended the Gymnasium Haganum and graduated in Leiden as a psychologist in 1996 after a clinical internship at a Child Guidance Centre in Ohio America. Directly afterwards she started a postdoctoral programme in (group)psychotherapy in Amsterdam which she completed in 2001. Her career started in Ermelo at Veldwijk (now GGZ Centraal). She has been working at De Jutter (now Youz) since 2002, where she among others has set up Albatros, department of clinical psychotherapy for adolescents.  She is head of the treatment centre for personality disorders, trauma and attachment disorders. In 2014, she started her PhD project into the relationship between attachment disorders and personality disorders in adolescents at the Curium-LUMC, which she finished in 2019. She is also specialized in the treatment of adolescents with complex trauma and dissociation and has among others written a chapter on this subject in the recently published EMDR manual in children and adolescents. In addition, she has been a board member of the Dutch Association for Psychotherapy (NVP) since October 2013 and chairman since November 2018.

Adolescents with insecure attachment and personality disorders in research and clinical practice

The most difficult target group in mental health care for youth, is recognizable from social debates: An alarming example of a suicide or severe non-suicidal self-injury illustrates the vulnerability of these adolescents and underlines a powerless society. Notably, this target group is often excluded from scientific research. In this lecture, Kirsten Hauber, psychotherapist and researcher, will present research results concerning intensive MBT (Mentalization-Based-Treatment) for adolescents with these problems and will discuss the relationship between attachment and developing personality disorder problems.