During the weekdays it's a normal psychiatric practice located somewhere in a town in Switzerland.
A special form of therapy only takes place here on Saturdays and Sundays, behind closed doors.
It takes up the entire premises and half the day because a single session can last up to six hours.
As a patient, 29-year-old Jens Heinrichs* makes himself comfortable on a sofa and swallows a handful of capsules that his psychiatrist gave him and which they had previously discussed at length.
He calms down, maybe puts a blanket over his legs and wears a blindfold to better look inward.
Plants, wooden furniture, and indirect lighting are recommended in the research literature for setting up the practice.
But it doesn't remain quite so contemplative.
After half an hour on the sofa, Heinrichs' legs are already beginning to wobble and fidget.
In the course of the six hours he has sometimes tumbled around on the floor, thrown himself away laughing, sang loudly, cried bitterly - and above all said a lot about himself that he would find difficult to put into words when sober.
His tongue is then relaxed, his view of the world is suddenly clearer, he says.
This is how Jens Heinrichs expresses the effect of MDMA, of which he takes about 100 milligrams in capsule form at the beginning of a session.
This "drug trip" every few weeks is an integral part of the therapy he's taking for his anxiety and depression.
It is only possible in this form in Switzerland and requires a special permit, which can be based, for example, on previous failed therapy.
The administered MDMA primarily releases the neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain.
It lifts the mood, reconciles with fellow human beings and makes perceptions more intense.
For this reason, it is taken illegally in nightclubs and has become world-famous as a party drug, ecstasy.
For Jens Heinrichs, on the other hand, MDMA means hard work.
At the end of the six hours, when the effects have worn off, the actual therapy process only begins, in exchange with his psychiatrist.
Then Heinrichs has to
The antidepressants seemed like a push-aside
“During my first trip, I placed a lot of hope in the drug alone.
But it is not a panacea,” says Heinrichs.
"In the end, I was overcome by a lot of sadness and anger, because as the effects of the substance wore off, it became clear that the trip hadn't solved all my problems after all." His high hopes were no coincidence.
They have been fueled by remarkable research results and sensational media reports in recent years.
So-called psycholytic therapies (which are accompanied by psychedelics like LSD, psilocybin and MDMA) are on the rise.
Prior to that, these therapies were ostracized for decades and only practiced underground by self-proclaimed gurus.
There is now good evidence of its effectiveness from the USA and England, and research is currently being carried out at the Berlin Charité.
Also in Jens Heinrichs' university town there had recently been studies on the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics.
That's how he came up with the idea for the treatment.
One of the leaders of these experiments, whom he approached, put him in touch with his current psychiatrist, who had specialized in this form of therapy.