A proportion of the people who reach this practice are not patients. They are physicians, private client advisers, family office principals, HR directors and lawyers, looking for somewhere in Switzerland to send someone discreetly, and needing to know quickly whether this is the right place.
This page is written for you rather than for them. It sets out what is here, what is not, and where the line falls.
What this is not
It is not a clinic. There is no bed, no admission, no medical team on site and no detoxification facility. Nobody can be placed here in the sense that they can be placed in a residential centre.
If what you need is an inpatient admission in Switzerland, this is not it, and it is better that you know within thirty seconds than after an exchange of emails.
What this is
One senior clinician working individually with the person you refer, online by secure video, in English or French, anywhere in Switzerland.
Dr Philippe Jacquet trained as an addiction specialist at the Hazelden Foundation in the United States. He worked inside private residential treatment for nine years, spent five supervising clinical teams within it, and continues to supervise clinicians in a private residential addiction service and a private psychiatric hospital. He has practised for twenty-five years. He is UKCP-registered as a psychotherapist and Jungian analyst and HCPC-registered as an art psychotherapist; both registers are public.
He holds no financial relationship with any Swiss facility, receives no referral fees and pays none. That matters for the only thing a referrer really needs from a clinician at this stage: an assessment of what the person actually requires, uncoloured by where it would be convenient to send them.
When to refer here, and when not to
The useful distinction is not severity. It is medical risk and containment.
Refer to a residential or inpatient service when there is physical dependency requiring supervised withdrawal, where there is a real risk of seizure or delirium, where the person is not safe alone, where there is acute psychiatric comorbidity needing daily medical oversight, or where the drinking or using has already defeated every outpatient attempt made in good faith.
Refer here when the difficulty is serious but not medically unstable; when the person cannot disappear for four to six weeks without consequences that outweigh the clinical benefit; when exposure is itself part of the harm, so that a record of admission is a genuine cost; when a residential stay has just ended and the months that follow will decide whether it held; or when someone is being pushed toward a clinic at speed, in crisis, and nobody has yet asked calmly whether it is necessary.
That last one is worth dwelling on. Very few people arrive at the question of residential treatment calmly. There is usually a family pressing, an employer who has noticed, and a five or six figure decision being taken inside a fortnight and inside a good deal of fear. An independent assessment at that moment, from someone with no facility to fill, is frequently the most valuable thing a referrer can arrange, whichever way the answer goes.
The point where referrals most often fail
Discharge.
A person returns from four weeks in a Swiss clinic to the same role, the same marriage, the same flat and the same reasons. The structure that held them ends on a Friday. Relapse after discharge is common and it is rarely a failure of willpower; it is the absence of anything continuous.
This is where a significant part of the practice sits, and where a referrer’s involvement usually stops too early. If you are arranging an admission, arranging what follows it at the same time changes the odds materially. It is much harder to organise afterwards, when the crisis has passed and everybody is relieved.
What you can tell the person you are referring
That it is online, so there is no waiting room, no travel, no local footprint and no admission recorded anywhere.
That nothing is disclosed to any employer, firm, board, family member or referrer without their consent, save for the narrow legal and safeguarding limits every registered practitioner is bound by, which are explained at the outset.
That the first conversation includes an honest view of whether this is the right level of care, and that if it is not, they will be told so rather than taken on.
On reporting back: nothing can be disclosed to you about the person’s treatment without their consent. That is a legal obligation binding every registered practitioner rather than a preference of this practice, so no clinician can promise you otherwise. What can be done is to ask. Consent for correspondence with a referring clinician is straightforward to obtain and is frequently given, and it will be raised at assessment if you tell us you need it.
Scope
Alcohol dependency, including high-functioning presentations. Cocaine and stimulants. Prescription dependency. Gambling. Sex and pornography addiction. Work with partners and families affected by another person’s addiction.
Delivered across Zurich, Geneva, Basel, Zug, Lausanne and Bern, in English or French. There is no German-language service, and it is more useful to say so than to let you find out later.
Making a referral
Write with as much or as little detail as consent allows. An indication of the substance or behaviour, the urgency, and whether a clinic has already been involved is enough to get a straight answer about suitability, usually the same day. If it is not suitable, you will be told, and where possible pointed somewhere it is.
Referral enquiries are handled confidentially and carry no obligation: get in touch.
Related: addiction treatment across Switzerland for the client-facing account of this work, addiction counselling for Geneva, and executive addiction treatment on the choice between residential care and intensive one-to-one work.
Dr Philippe Jacquet is a UKCP registered psychotherapist, a Jungian analyst and an HCPC registered art psychotherapist, with twenty-five years of clinical practice. His Doctorate of Professional Practice at the University of Essex examined male eating disorders from the perspective of analytical psychology. Registration can be checked on either public register.
Common questions
Can you accept a referral for someone who needs medically supervised detoxification?
No. There is no medical cover, no bed and no admission here, and it would be unsafe to pretend otherwise. Where withdrawal carries a risk of seizure or delirium, or where someone is not safe alone, the referral belongs with a residential or inpatient facility. Dr Jacquet will say so directly and will take the person on afterwards, which is the point at which residential treatment most often comes undone.
How quickly can a referral be seen?
Usually within a few days, and urgent referrals from clinicians are prioritised. Because the work is online there is no waiting list of the kind a facility carries, and no travel or admission to arrange.
Will I receive reports on the person I refer?
Only with the client's consent. Disclosing anything about a person's treatment without their consent is unlawful, and this binds every registered practitioner equally; the only exceptions are the narrow legal and safeguarding limits explained to every client at the outset. Consent for correspondence with a referring clinician is straightforward to obtain and is frequently given. If you need it, say so when you refer and it will be raised at assessment.
Is this an alternative to a Swiss residential clinic or an addition to one?
Both, depending on the case. For someone without a physical dependency requiring supervised withdrawal, intensive one-to-one work is often the proportionate first step. For someone leaving a clinic, it is the continuity that determines whether the stay holds. Dr Jacquet has no financial relationship with any Swiss facility, so the assessment of which is needed carries no commercial interest.
What can I tell a client about confidentiality?
That sessions are online, so there is no waiting room, no local record and no admission held anywhere. Nothing is disclosed to any employer, firm, board or third party without the client's consent, save for the narrow legal and safeguarding limits every registered practitioner is bound by, which are explained at the outset. For clients whose difficulty is exposure as much as addiction, this is usually the deciding factor.
Which languages and which parts of Switzerland?
English and French, across Zurich, Geneva, Basel, Zug, Lausanne and Bern, delivered online by secure video. There is no German-language service.
What are your registrations, and can they be checked?
UKCP-registered psychotherapist and Jungian analyst, HCPC-registered art psychotherapist, trained as an addiction specialist at the Hazelden Foundation. Both registers are public and can be verified independently before you refer.