Prof. Dr. med. Wolfram Kawohl

Professor Wolfram Kawohl is a psychiatrist and psychotherapist of Swiss and German
nationality. After graduating from high school, Wolfram Kawohl studied medicine at the
RWTH Aachen University in Aachen (Germany) from 1992 to 1999 and then worked clinically
and scientifically at university hospitals in Aachen and Zurich (Switzerland).
Following appointments to professorships in Germany and Switzerland and a visiting
professorship at Leuphana University Lüneburg for several years, he is an adjunct professor
of psychiatry and psychotherapy at the University of Zurich since 2015 and a professor of
psychiatry at the University of Nicosia Medical School since 2022.
From 2016 to the end of 2020, Wolfram Kawohl headed the Department for Psychiatry and
Psychotherapy at Psychiatric Services Aargau AG (PDAG) with its outpatient, day-care and
inpatient facilities. Since the beginning of 2021, he is Chief Medical Officer of the Clienia
Schlössli AG private mental hospital and since 2025 of the Clienia Outpatient Services. He
also is the vice chairman of the board of a large public mental hospital in Switzerland and a
member of the board of directors of two private outpatient clinics in Switzerland.
Prof. Kawohl’s scientific work includes contributions to research into clinicalneurophysiological aspects of mental functions, disorders and risk states on the one hand
and the relationship between work and mental health and illness on the other. In particular,
health-promoting aspects of work and improving the chances of working despite mental
illness are also taken into account.

Prof. Kawohl has authored and co-authored more than 200 scientific publications, among
them textbook and articles in high ranking scientific journals. In 2015, Kawohl published a
highly regarded study on the connection between unemployment and suicide in The Lancet
Psychiatry as senior author together with sociologist Carlos Nordt. The accompanying press
release from the University of Zurich was the most cited in 2015, and was reported on a total
of 540 times by Swiss media outlets including Der Spiegel, Le Figaro, the Economic Times,
radio stations and Indian and Asian portals.
Kawohl also deals with psychopathological and pathophysiological principles and the
treatment of disorders of the OCD-spectrum, e.g. Gilles de la Tourette syndrome, and digital interventions and in psychiatry and psychotherapy.