My driver at Geneva airport opens the car door for me—a routine gesture, but one that saves me having to face one of my biggest ongoing struggles: communal door handles. Filthy, and potentially evil. After decades of living with contamination OCD, I’m now being driven along sharply winding Alpine roads to Clinic Les Alpes, a medically licensed rehab facility in the Swiss mountains, to address my obsessive thinking.
A chalet-like building of epic proportions, it feels more like a private home than a mental wellbeing center. “Fundamentally, it’s a place of healing,” founder Patrick Wilson tells me. After facing his own struggles with addiction, he created Clinic Les Alpes to replicate the “spectacularly sympathetic” care he received in rehab years ago. “I wanted a quiet, serene environment, where people could know they were safe and that they’d be treated like human beings.”
The clinic specializes in substance-based and behavioral addictions and also offers treatment for burnout commonly experienced by CEOs, heads of state, or those in the creative industries. Imposter syndrome sets in, as my aversion to restaurant cutlery is far less life-threatening: most admissions to the clinic are from people who are at a desperate stage in their lives. That said, I’m determined to wring every bit out of this experience and face my behavioral demons head on.
I struggle with holding the key fob for my room, not knowing who has held it before, but once I’m inside I put on the packet-fresh complimentary slippers so my socked feet don’t touch the “communal” carpet. From my balcony, I take in the sweep of deep-green forest and listen to the distant clang of cowbells. I breathe in deeply.
My packed itinerary includes an initial medical check and then a series of therapies: equine, where I learn how to get Audrey the mule to respond to my verbal and physical commands; sound therapy, where I’m relaxed by the chimes of Tibetan singing bowls; and art therapy, where I channel my inner emotions on paper using colors, words, and shapes. Each of these is enjoyable in the moment, but isn’t specifically targeted at my OCD so doesn’t improve my condition—although the picture I made now hangs on my kitchen wall as a positive reminder of my experience. There’s also massage, along with a sauna, hammam, and gym in the Body Mind Source (BMS) area. Many of these involve the type of communal spaces and equipment that normally trigger my OCD, yet I feel this place is supportive and ultimately clean, which eases my contamination-induced impulses.
The clinic is multilingual and multidisciplinary. Medical, clinical, BMS, and hospitality teams work closely to support each patient’s needs; the breathing techniques I learn in my psychoeducation sessions reinforce the connection between mind and body and help me to center my thoughts. “When you get into the realm of the mind, it’s so personal, so complicated,” says Wilson. “You have to look at the whole person.”
I see a man looking at me expectantly in the corridor of the clinical area, and I’m introduced to Mert Ulusoy, my psychotherapist, with whom I have daily one-to-one talk therapy sessions. We discuss my aversion to touching anything that may have been handled by a “bad” person, potentially transferring their “evil” on to me. I attribute my compulsive reactions to being physically attacked by a stranger when I was 16, after which I found one of my assailant’s hairs on the coat I’d been wearing.
This led to the exhausting compulsive routine of avoiding potential contamination from others, and constant hand-washing, which I’ve been carrying out for more than three decades. On a daily basis, I avoid handrails, touchscreens, and door handles for fear of who has touched them before. But friends and loved ones are “safe” and, in a secure relationship with a partner I trust, contamination thoughts about them are lessened. In a soft tone, Ulusoy suggests I can tell myself a “different story”, and I feel a chink of light in my otherwise dark thinking.
Over the next few days, he gently delves deeper and I open up emotionally, to the point of ugly crying. He assures me that the solution to my OCD is a simple process, but one that can be extremely challenging: exposure therapy, for which I’d need more than the five days that I’m here. He suggests that I carry around a particular object from my home that I’m uncomfortable touching, then gauge how I feel. After years of being resistant to talk therapy, I realize I’m now more open to suggestion.
In a part of the clinic hewn from solid rock, psychiatrist and medical director Dr Randolph Willis walks me along the soothingly dark tunnel that leads to the Serenity Room, its vast glass wall looking out over the Alpine landscape. Using medical hypnosis, he puts me into a state of trance then guides me to visualize myself swinging from a place of contamination to a place of safety. My emotional response takes me by surprise, and I feel another positive and unexpected shift.
All this self-introspection is cushioned not only by Thai massage and the ringing of Tibetan bowls, but by the exceptional food and the amiable staff—and it’s the people who make this place. Nothing is too much trouble. When it’s clear that I can’t navigate the winding roads en route to some activities without experiencing motion sickness, the medical team supplies me with anti-nausea pills and arrangements are made for future travel to be made via the nearby funicular railway—a more gentle means of transport that’s enveloped by the surrounding greenery.
By the end of my stay, I’ve ditched the slippers and am traversing my carpet barefoot. I’m also accustomed to, if not entirely comfortable with, carrying the key fob around with me. As Ulusoy perceptively asks, “What will happen...?” The practical answer being, not much.
Aftercare is paramount to the treatment philosophy and 10 days after my return, I have a video call with dietician Severine Perillat. My microbiome results are in, and it’s a mixed bag. I’m healthy enough to have shaved 15 years off my biological age, but I’ve succumbed to my own addiction—sugar—which is affecting my physical and ultimately my mental health. I have a follow-up session with Ulusoy too, who suggests some therapists in London that I can continue to work with.
Back in my old routine, the struggle is still real, but there has definitely been a change. I now remind myself that “not much” will happen if I touch the just-delivered mail without washing my hands afterwards. Thanks to the hypnosis, I also have a new perspective on my attacker, which allows me to start telling myself a different narrative.
The 28-day individual program at Clinic Les Alpes starts at about $50,290 per week. There is the option of shorter stays dependent on the patient’s objective and the medical team’s advice. cliniclesalpes.com
A version of this article originally appeared on Condé Nast Traveller.
