The CLAIREN approach
Treatment that evolves with understanding.
Most people who come to CLAIREN have already had therapy, attended a programme, or completed residential treatment. What was missing was rarely commitment. It was an approach coherent enough to hold together and flexible enough to change as understanding deepened.
Personalised. Evidence-based. Led directly by Sander, never by a rotating treatment team.
Principles
Four principles the entire model is built on.
CLAIREN does not operate through standardised packages or predefined pathways. Every aspect of care is shaped by clinical judgement and an evolving understanding of the person.
Look beyond the addiction
Addiction and compulsive behaviours rarely exist in isolation. They may connect to trauma, anxiety, chronic stress, burnout, perfectionism, grief or shame. The behaviour needs direct attention, but lasting change usually depends on understanding what it has been helping the person endure, and building healthier ways of meeting that need.
One clinician, one continuous relationship
Every engagement is personally led by Sander and stays under his care throughout. A continuous relationship lets understanding deepen: there is no retelling of your history, and insight gained at one stage stays part of the same evolving clinical picture. As circumstances change, treatment can change without starting again with someone new.
Care must fit the life you are trying to protect
Treatment is structured around leadership demands, business commitments, travel and family responsibilities, while remaining guided by clinical need. Flexibility does not mean reducing the intensity or integrity of treatment, it means designing care around the individual rather than fitting the individual into a timetable.
Evidence-based, personalised, never templated
Treatment may draw on CBT, DBT, trauma-informed psychotherapy, motivational and integrative approaches, and relational or family work where appropriate. What is right at the start of recovery may not be what is required several months later. Evidence informs the treatment; the individual and the therapeutic process determine how it is applied.
The sequence
What happens, from the first call to long-term recovery.
Every case is individual, but the shape of an engagement is consistent: five stages, one clinician, and no obligation to continue past any of them until you choose to.
First contact
A private conversation directly with Sander to understand what is happening, answer your questions and consider whether CLAIREN is the right clinical fit. No call centre, no automated triage, no intake coordinator. You do not need the right words or any clinical terminology, only to describe what is happening in your own way.
Confidential clinical assessment
A structured biopsychosocial assessment looking past the presenting concern: personal and developmental history, physical and psychological health, relationships, professional environment, and current sources of pressure. Where relevant it covers substance use and compulsive behaviours, previous treatment, relapse history, co-occurring difficulties, protective factors and current clinical risk.
Individualised treatment plan
A plan built around your clinical needs, circumstances and goals, setting out recommended approaches, initial priorities, session frequency, level of support and sequencing, with clear review points so treatment can evolve. Nothing is finalised without your understanding and agreement.
Private one-to-one treatment
Treatment delivered privately and led personally by Sander, combining psychotherapy with specialist addiction expertise. It remains responsive throughout: priorities change, approaches are introduced, and intensity is adjusted according to clinical need and progress.
Long-term recovery and continuing care
As stability becomes established, the focus can move towards consolidation, relapse prevention and the deeper psychological patterns that contributed to the addiction. The clinician who understands your history stays available through periods of pressure, transition or increased travel. The intensity of support may change; the continuity of the relationship does not.
CLAIREN maintains a deliberately limited caseload of no more than five clients at any one time, so that each course of treatment receives the time and continuity it requires.
Scope
What CLAIREN treats.
Specialist expertise, thoughtfully applied, in addiction and in the psychological factors that sustain it.
Not every presentation is appropriate for treatment within CLAIREN. Where medical detoxification, urgent psychiatric care or another specialist service is required, we will say so clearly and recommend the right next step.
Substance-related
- Alcohol dependence and problematic drinking
- Cocaine and other stimulant use
- Prescription dependence, including benzodiazepines and opioids
- Cannabis and other recreational drug use
- Ketamine and other psychoactive substances
- Polysubstance use and complex dependence
Behavioural and compulsive
- Gambling-related problems and addiction
- Compulsive working patterns
- Sexual and pornography-related compulsive behaviour
- Relationship and attachment-related patterns
- Gaming and problematic digital behaviour
- Compulsive spending and associated financial behaviour
Alongside the addiction
- Trauma and unresolved adverse experience
- Anxiety, chronic stress and burnout
- Depression and co-occurring mood difficulties
- Perfectionism and achievement-driven patterns
- Grief, loss and difficulties with identity
- Relationship and family-system difficulties
- Shame, emotional avoidance and regulation difficulties
- The psychological demands of sustained leadership
Why this model exists
The conventional pathways fail in predictable ways.
CLAIREN was built specifically to address each of them.
Every part of this model is built to protect your privacy.
Privately funded only
No insurance claims. No routine disclosure through insurer billing pathways.
Direct clinician access
No call centre, no intake team, no third-party coordinator.
Individually confidential
Every conversation held under clinical confidentiality, within the limits UK safeguarding law requires.
You control disclosure
Information is not routinely shared without your agreement, subject to safeguarding, legal and professional limits.
The full confidentiality framework and its safeguarding exceptions are set out in the Privacy Notice.
The smallest possible next step is a conversation.
Nothing about that first call commits you to treatment. It is a chance to describe what has been happening and decide, with Sander, whether anything should follow.