A psychologist, adult psychotherapist, trained family therapist and researcher, Dr. van der Hart is Professor of Psychopathology of Chronic Traumatization at the Department of Clinical and Health Psychology at Utrecht University, the Netherlands, and a psychologist/psychotherapist at the Sinai Center for Mental Health, Amsterdam. He is clinical consultant of the Center for Post-Trauma Therapy and Trauma Eduction, Helsinki and Oulu, Finland. Until recently Dr. van der Hart was Chief of Research at the Cats-Polm Institute—a research institute in the area of childhood abuse and neglect—in Zeist and a lead psychotherapist, specialized in the treatment of clients with complex trauma-related disorders, at the Mental Health Center Buitenamstel in Amsterdam.
Currently, Prof. van der Hart is working with colleagues Ellert Nijenhuis, PhD, and Kathy Steele, MN, CS, on a theoretical approach on trauma-related structural dissociation of the personality and treatment model which unifies psychiatric disorders with a traumatic stress origin. Their combined efforts resulted, among other things, in the publication of their book, “The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization” (New York/London: W.W. Norton & Cie, 2006), for which they received the Media Award of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation.