Kirsten Gilbert
Associate Professor of Psychiatry
- Phone: 314-747-0001
- Email: gilbertk@nospam.wustl.edu
Education & Training
- Postdoctoral Research Fellowship: Washington University, St. Louis, MO, 2017
- Postdoctoral Fellowship: Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, 2015
- Ph.D.: Yale University, 2014
- B.A.: Stanford University, 2005
Major Awards
- Research Mentor of the Year, Applied Health and Behavior Research Program, 2023
- Radically Open Institute Research Award, 2023
- Brain and Behavior Research Foundation NARSAD Young Investigator Awared, 2021
- NIMH K23 Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award, 2017
- Child Intervention, Prevention and Services (CHIPS) Institute Training Consortium, 2017
- NIMH Career Development Institute for Bipolar Disorder, 2015
- Outstanding Clinician Award, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, 2014
Areas of Clinical Interest
Dr. Gilbert is intensively trained in Radically Open Dialectical Behavior Therapy (RO DBT), is an RO DBT senior clinician and is currently working with the treatment developer and colleagues on developmental adaptations of RO DBT for adolescents. She currently sees adolescents with social anxiety, generalized anxiety, eating disorders, obsessive-compulsive presentations and/or depression who are overcontrolled, working on decreasing overcontrolled tendencies of rigidity, emotional inhibition, need for structure/control and perfectionism, by increasing openness, flexibility and social communication to increase social connectedness.
Research Interests
Dr. Gilbert’s research examines how ‘too much self-control,’ in the form of heightened performance monitoring and ‘overcontrol’ develop in young children and can be targeted in treatment. She is interested in elucidating the cognitive, social, reward, and psychiatric correlates of overcontrol and the role of parenting and the parent-child relationship in overcontrolled phenotypes in youth. Dr. Gilbert also is trained in Radically Open Dialectical Behavior Therapy (RO DBT), a novel treatment that directly targets overcontrol, and has a line of research testing efficacy, developmental adaptations, and mechanisms of this treatment. Dr. Gilbert utilizes behavioral, EEG/ERP techniques, and observational methods in her research.
Recent Publications
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Evidence for decreased maladaptive guilt following PCIT-ED for depression as measured by story stem narratives: a promising method for preschool self-disclosure of emotions and experiences of parenting
Ellis, J., Luby, J., Agrawal, A., Freeman, A., Gilbert, K., Whalen, D., Tillman, R. & Donohue, M. R., Jul 2026, In: European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. 35, 7, p. 2129-2139 11 p.
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Childhood behavioral inhibition and overcontrol: Risk for psychiatric and peer outcomes
Steinhoff, M. F., Sudit, E., Fox, N. A., Tillman, R., Herzberg, M. P., Barch, D. M., Luby, J. L. & Gilbert, K., Jun 1 2026, In: Developmental Psychology. 62, 6, p. 1250-1262 13 p.
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Preadolescent Benefits of Parent–Child Interaction Therapy Emotion Development for Preschool Depression: 4-Year Follow-Up
Elansary, M., Barch, D. M., Tillman, R., Dandrea, C. B., Vogel, A. C., Donohue, M. R., Hennefield, L., Gilbert, K. & Luby, J. L., May 2026, In: Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. 65, 5, p. 669-684 16 p.
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Brief report: Aspects of preschool personality predict sexual behavior in young adulthood
Huntington, C., Vogel, A. C., Tillman, R., Whalen, D. J., Barch, D. M., Luby, J. L. & Gilbert, K., Feb 2026, In: Personality and Individual Differences. 250, 113562.
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Associations of Child Amygdala Development With Borderline Personality Symptoms During Adolescence
Constantino-Pettit, A., Gilbert, K., Boone, K., Luking, K., Geselowitz, B., Tillman, R., Whalen, D., Luby, J., Barch, D. M. & Vogel, A., Feb 2026, In: Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging. 11, 2, p. 242-249 8 p.