Inside the most expensive rehab clinic in the world
Upon checking in at £10,000-a-night rehab centre Paracelsus Recovery, I find myself transported into a world that revolves entirely around me. Bequeathed with a 15-member entourage of therapists, clinicians, masseuses and personal chefs, I am part of a collective powered by a single goal: my betterment.
If you can think of a celebrity who’s been to rehab, they’re not nearly rich enough for Paracelsus Recovery, the most expensive rehab clinic in the world where discretion is everything. CEOs, politicians and even royalty reside among its top-secret alumni.
Unlike other rehabilitation centres where group therapy can be a key component of treatment, patients at Paracelsus Recovery are treated alone; after all, what common ground could a young Saudi princess, an 80-year-old Hong Kong billionaire and the American grandkid of a famous actor possibly have? The clinic can take up to four patients at a time (provided one stays at the neighbouring hotel), but schedules are carefully managed to ensure paths never cross. Staying there, you can allow yourself to believe the clinic is devoted only to you.
“Obviously we’ve signed an NDA with every single person who has face time with a client,” says Jan Gerber, the founder and chief exec of Paracelsus Recovery. “And Switzerland has some of the strictest medical secrecy laws in the world. Prison terms are quite heavy. There have been no leaks.”
The £10,000 a day rehab centre
Prices vary depending on package, but ‘patients’ or ‘clients’ (the website flits between these terms) can expect to stump up between £86,000 and £108,000 a week to stay, with people typically encouraged to stay for a minimum of four to six weeks. Shorter programmes are available but Gerber says it’s hard to make progress in less time. Some clients fake cancer diagnoses in order to explain their absence from work, while others attempt to live a dual life. “We’ve had people running companies, and in one case a country, from here. We can be flexible, they just don’t get the full money’s worth,” Gerber says.
And at over £10,000 a day, clients want their investment to pay off. Almost all come at crisis point. Some are fighting eating disorders, others serious drug addictions, and many have been forced to go to Paracelsus Recovery after acting out, some amid public scandal. The team have occasionally coached clients before and after TV interviews during their residence, and referrals from burnt out business executives are up 700 per cent in the last year.
The Paracelsus regime is intense: full medical analysis and treatment; genetic testing and extensive laboratory tests; a team of 15-plus experts at your disposal; full psychological analysis; sleep, lifestyle and nutritional assessment; a personal psychiatrist and a live-in therapist. Treatment programmes are bespoke, with a “whatever works mentality”, including traditional medical treatments in conjunction with local hospitals, as well as the more “holistic” regimes (acupuncture, breathwork, psychedelics and puppies are all available “when appropriate”). There are shinier perks too: a personal trainer, a private chef, your own driver, access to a five-star spa and, not least, your private penthouse residence, located in one of the most expensive districts in the city with a coveted view over Lake Zurich. But this is no holiday: Gerber assures me “you don’t go into this kind of treatment unless you’re in a bad place.”
Rich and miserable
There were many bizarre things about my stay at Paracelsus Recovery, but perhaps the bizarrest is that I am perfectly well. I was checking into the clinic for the noble pursuit of journalism and also, perhaps, the less noble one of voyeurism: what exactly does it look like to be so rich and so miserable?
Filling in the extensive surveys ahead of my visit – in which tick-box answers ranged from “I often feel misunderstood” to “I have ‘stared death in the face’” – it began to sink in that I was not on my way to a five-star resort. Indeed, I soon realised that the luxury is partly a disguise for some of Paracelsus Recovery’s clinical functions. The attentiveness of service may be part of the premium experience, but it’s also a form of surveillance.
When I was told by the clinic I would be met upon arrival, for example, I didn’t expect it to be on the airport tarmac itself. Stepping off the plane, I hadn’t even crossed the airbridge before being intercepted by an attendant, who promptly ushered me through a secret exit and into a car on the ground. From there I was driven to a private immigration desk, then shown to a buffet, all while someone else went to fetch my luggage.
By the time I’ve made it out of the airport, the attendant’s told me I’ve made her day with how giddy I am; it turns out she’s more used to A-list insouciance. She drops me off at a Bentley, which I’m by this point unsurprised to find out is for me. The door is opened to reveal Gerber inside, who has come to accompany me for the 30 minute drive to the apartment. This is part of the Paracelsus method: patients may be treated individually, but they are never left alone.
Never alone
The Schedule is an important part of Paracelsus Recovery, Gerber tells me. My Schedule, printed and bound, is left for me on my dining room table: by breakfast the next day I’ll already have had a blood test and a 90 minute psychiatry session.
Said psychiatry session is a little tame compared to what Dr Thilo Beck is used to. A driving force behind the Swiss approach to the heroin epidemic in the 1990s, Beck was part of what has been cited as one of the most successful case studies in drug harm reduction. He is a favourite among the other staff members, who frequently reference his “zen” aura.
He is certainly calm, but he’s also a little intimidating. The session takes place in the apartment’s therapy room, where we sit on plump cream armchairs overlooked by a crystal chandelier. Beck moves and speaks slowly, giving his every move a sense of deliberation. He’s not afraid to sit in silence and tells me I can lead the session. This is part of the method, with Beck favouring a collaborative approach. “Oftentimes therapists or doctors feel that they know best and tell the clients what is good for them. I don’t believe in that at all… I think when they come here, somehow they know what they need. They wouldn’t come otherwise.”
That’s bad news for me: not only am I not actually in need of rehab, this is my first therapy session and I’m not sure what to do. To fill the silence, I regale Beck with tales of day-to-day gripes with friends and family, more of a gossip session than high-level psychiatry. Despite this, Beck’s insights are astute and occasionally blunt. “They might not care much about you,” he remarks at one point.
No time to dwell. From here it’s time for breakfast, prepared by my private chef (the most beautiful bowl of Greek yogurt I’ve ever encountered followed by poached eggs and avocado on toast, garnished with petals) before another member of my ever-expanding entourage arrives to take me to the clinic (a one-minute walk away, but you bet I won’t be doing it alone).
On arrival, a cast of medics await. I feel rather like Julie Andrews greeting the Von Trapp children, all lined up as they await my whistle. From here I’m whisked through a body composition scan, medical history consultation, physical examination and 3D ECG. The medical equipment is as stylish as medical equipment can be without making you lose faith in them: white, sleek and easily folded away so as not to obstruct the lakeside view. Having complained of being a little tired, I’m taken to the zero gravity chair, tucked up under a weighted blanket and left for a low-frequency vibration-induced power nap (which, incredibly, does work, though I am a good sleeper anyway), before being escorted back to the apartment for lunch, followed by physiotherapy.
I’ve got a 20 minute gap at this point and I’ve been dying to go outside to see the lake, but I make it just a few yards down the road when my phone buzzes. Sigh. My masseuse is early. I am beginning to develop empathy for the superrich.
When I return from my short bid for freedom, Joanne is already in the apartment (everyone has keys) and is ready to address the tension in my shoulders and lower back, as identified by my physio. This is when I find out about the ‘Anna’ Whatsapp group chat, the forum where my attendants exchange notes on my progress.
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I’m relieved to have been spared one aspect of the usual Paracelsus Recovery stay: a live-in therapist. On hand full-time, seven days a week, the therapist resides in the apartment’s second bedroom, with patients at liberty to call upon them whenever they need, even if that means waking them during the night. “They do a lot of ad hoc work, so if a client gets a phone call from a spouse or business partner and they feel strong emotions or get triggered, then the live-in therapist is there for immediate holding and processing,” Gerber says.
He explains it’s a bit “like a flatshare in terms of the feel”, with the therapist joining the patient for meals and generally hanging out around the apartment. If the client wants to go out on an excursion, perhaps to a restaurant or a gallery, the therapist goes too. I ask if this might get a bit annoying, but Gerber says it’s essential, and there have only been a handful of cases where they’ve had to replace the live-in because a client didn’t get along with them.
Getting along is fairly crucial as, once your residence is finished, you will be encouraged to take your live-in therapist back home with you. Gerber tells me that about half the clients take advantage of this, and stresses its importance to the aftercare process. Going back to normal life after Paracelsus Recovery can be jarring, and the first few days and weeks after treatment can be the most dangerous time for relapse. How long can the transition last? From two weeks to… Gerber stops to think. One live-in therapist left 10 years ago, he recalls, and has yet to return.
•••
When I first met Gerber, a couple of months before my stay, over a coffee at The Langham, he told me of his strong belief that, as a society, we need to be far more sympathetic towards the rich.
“They’re not well, emotionally. They’re very, very, very lonely, more lonely than somebody from the average population,” he says, adding that some clients have returned multiple times, requesting the same apartment and almost considering the staff as friends.
He tells me there is a strong link between success and poor mental health. People with ADHD, for example, have traits that propel them to excel in top management, but also make them predisposed to alcoholism. Add to that the stressors of leading a company – or a country – and it’s not a pretty picture. For him, it’s also personal. After suffering from acute depression and burnout, he himself checked into a rehab clinic. When finding themselves at rock bottom, many HNWIs don’t want to admit it for fear of reputational damage, while others are so lonely they have no one to call. “When things get tough, who do you call if you’re the CEO of a big oil company or big bank?” asks Gerber. “What if you feel like crying on a Wednesday afternoon?”
I ask whether being spoiled could contribute to such issues, whether the level of pampering provided at Paracelsus Recovery could even be unhelpful. Many other rehabs seek to intentionally humble their patients, with communal living arrangements where mucking in with household chores is part of the programme. Gerber insists this wouldn’t work for his clientele. “Telling them to do their own laundry is not a solution – it will be an additional stress factor,” he says.
“At this kind of wealth level, people are not used to carrying their own luggage. They’re not even used to thinking about bringing stuff to the laundry… what is important is that we don’t judge or project our own reality onto their realities.”
To make his point he gestures to the apartment I’ve been excitingly showing off to friends and family. “For our clients, this is tiny. But, you know, the lake view is nice, right? This is our best attempt to recreate the minimum expectation of normality for our clients, to take out as many stressors as possible from the everyday experience.”
So does it actually work? Do Paracelsus Recovery’s super-rich clients leave the gilded clinic happy and healthy? Gerber says it’s hard to measure what counts as a “successful case” and is suspicious when other rehab clinics claim to have “90 per cent success rates” or similar. After all, what does ‘success’ really mean? “As long as they’re like, ‘Okay, my life is actually worth living, and I enjoy it more again, and my wife doesn’t hate me, my kids talk to me again’, that I will consider a success.” For £100,000 a week, it’s not a lot to ask.
