Jan Gerber co-founded the Kusnacht Practice in 2011. He went on to found Paracelsus Recovery in 2012 with his parents: his father Werner, a psychiatrist, and his mother Christine, a clinical nurse. Same idea, different execution.
Where they are
Kusnacht Practice hosts patients in ten private villas at Zollikon, above the Zurich lake. Each client has their own villa. There are no shared spaces and no other clients to pass.
Paracelsus is the top floors of three nineteenth century apartment blocks on Utoquai, in the middle of Zurich, with no sign and no reception.
One is seclusion with room to walk. The other is anonymity in a city, within reach of the opera house and the station.
A client who needs to disappear entirely does better at Kusnacht Practice. A client who has to keep one hand on their work, or who would find grounds and silence unbearable, does better at Paracelsus.
Unparalleled attention
Paracelsus treats one client at a time, with fifteen specialists attached to that person and a live-in therapist on 24 hour call. The team comes to the residence for ten to twelve hours a day, so there is no waiting room. Thilo Beck is the lead psychiatrist. Thomas Südhof, who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2013, chairs the medical advisory board.
Kusnacht employs about 30 members of staff for each client, and welcomes only 70 to 80 clients each year. Kusnacht Practice developed its own BIO-R protocol, which brings biochemical testing into a psychiatric admission.
Other strengths
Both Kusnacht Practice and Paracelsus offer a short assessment, because clients increasingly have been asking for it, besides their work on mental health.
- The three night Health Assessment program at Kusnacht Practice starts at CHF 19,000.
- The one at Paracelsus takes three days and starts at CHF 25,000.
Paracelsus also offers a seven day executive detox at CHF 120,000. It is completely tailored to the needs of the most demanding executives.
When addiction and a psychiatric condition arrive together
At this level of care, a single diagnosis is the exception. Long-term substance use often comes with depression, anxiety or trauma, and the psychiatric side usually came first. Clinicians call this dual diagnosis, or a co-occurring disorder. It changes what good treatment looks like. Working on the addiction while ignoring the psychiatry invites relapse. Working on both takes psychiatrists, internists and therapists on one plan, in one place.
Both Zurich addresses are built for this. Kusnacht Practice runs its BIO-R protocol inside the psychiatric admission, so biochemical testing shapes the clinical work from day one. Nutrient status, thyroid function and sleep chemistry are measured. Paracelsus Recovery brings together fifteen specialists per client, which is the staffing a complex case actually needs. Where withdrawal is expected, detox happens under medical supervision, with nursing around the clock.
The detox is only the doorway. The psychiatric work and the whole mental health reconstruction follow.
What a stay is actually like
The first days are assessment. Medical examinations, blood work, psychiatric interviews, and a treatment plan agreed with you. Then the week settles into a rhythm. Therapy in the morning, medical or body work in the afternoon, relaxed evenings. At Paracelsus the team comes to your residence for ten to twelve hours a day. At Kusnacht Practice the specialists come to your villa in the same way. There is no waiting room.
You will not meet other clients. Kusnacht Practice keeps ten villas with one client in each and no shared spaces. Paracelsus takes one client at a time, so the only patient in the house is you. The Utoquai buildings carry no sign and no reception.
Discretion here is engraved in the design of the experience. Staff work under non-disclosure agreements. Family joins the work when you want them in, by session or by visit. Both houses have treated famous clients, celebrities, patients whose anonymity needed to be respected by all means, and their processes were built for that.
On length: four weeks is the common starting point for residential treatment, and complex cases run longer, but it's always defined on a case by case basis, as it should be. This is the reason why such stays start with a consultation with their medical team. When the question is what is wrong rather than treat it now, both addresses offer the three-day assessments described above.
The specialised addictions
Not every addiction involves a substance. Both houses also treat what clinicians call process addictions. Gambling, trading, gaming and screen use respond to the same medical logic: find what fundamentally triggers the behaviour, then treat that. Paracelsus Recovery works with screen and technology addiction on a regular basis. Dependence on prescription medication is a frequent admission at both, often a sleeping pill or benzodiazepine that became permanent. It ends with a slow taper, overseen by doctors.
Admission process
Neither clinic is emergency care. The admission process is extremely smooth and efficient, but still takes days to arrange. If someone is in immediate danger, take them to a hospital or call the local emergency number.
The admission process at Kusnacht Practice and Paracelsus starts with a consultation with their medical team. It allows their team to assess the needs of the patient, to establish a proposal, and to answer any questions you may have.
Alternatives to Switzerland
Sometimes Kusnacht Practice and Paracelsus are not the right answer, or sometimes Switzerland is just not the right location. Burnout without addiction or acute psychiatry can also be taken care of at a medical health resort, where sleep medicine and stress medicine lead and the setting is softer. The cost is also usually much lower. Our burnout page covers those options. Depression that needs regular care (i.e. not a psychiatric admission) can be worked on in retreat settings with daily therapy, and we recommend those case by case. Language matters too: both Zurich houses work in English as standard, and treatment in German, French, Italian, Arabic or Russian can be arranged. And if someone is in immediate danger, the answer is a hospital, today.
