Just Say No

To Bingham, it's the anti-psychotics that are the placebos — more expensive and dangerous crutches than pot or alcohol. He's spent years combing through psychiatric journals, becoming ever more convinced that the science behind the clinical studies is too biased and flawed to justify widespread use of anti-psychotics.

Bingham's used to hearing people say they couldn't live without their drugs, or that they have a relative whose life has been saved by them. Blunt by nature, he's changed how he converses with those people.

"I used to say, "Well, you can believe what you want, but I can just tell you that in my experience, with the right therapy and support, the drugs are unnecessary. They're only necessary if you'd like to cut yourself off from whatever feelings and emotions got you to the point of overwhelm where someone thought you needed the medication,'" Bingham says.

These days he says it how he did on the radio: If there were a better way, wouldn't you want to give it a try?

Full Spectrum has worked with about 200 people in the last couple of years, Bingham says. He doesn't compile stats, and doesn't track how people fare after they leave. Beyond the several who've given up the meds they were on, many others came in off meds but on the verge of taking them. Some decided to stay off, while others chose to go on them.

"The important thing is they were exposed to an alternative approach," he says. "Whether they're on or off meds is less important than being more consciously on or off them."

One young woman, now 20, came in with a schizophrenia diagnosis and a regimen of three anti-psychotic and sedating medications, twice daily. She spoke in various voices and couldn't converse with others. At Full Spectrum, she improved so much that her psychiatrist removed the diagnosis and worked with Bingham to help her off most of her medications. She's down to one pill once a day.

Dr. Robin Cooper is the woman's psychiatrist; she works at the Adult Care Management Program for the Family Service Agency of San Francisco. Cooper, who has been a clinician in San Francisco for 24 years, didn't initially know of Bingham's bias against medication. When he first brought up the idea of helping her wean off, Cooper was hesitant; she'd had a negative experience helping a bipolar patient of her own do the same thing. But in this young woman's case, Cooper came to believe she had been misdiagnosed — that her problems were due to developmental delays, and that previous psychiatrists had prescribed medications as superficial behavioral controls.

Cooper is of two minds about Full Spectrum. She thinks the quality of the psychotherapy and other services it has offered is extraordinary, but disagrees with Bingham's wholesale opposition to pharmaceuticals. She's therefore careful about referring clients, but still inclined to do so — especially given the city's bleak landscape of mental health services.

"A lot of what used to be day programs have been renamed as "re-socialization programs,' which means they're really just drop-ins," Cooper says. "It's horrendous, there's just no investment anymore in really cohesive programs, it's just been cut and cut over the decades. You really can't find a decent day treatment program anywhere anymore."

Full Spectrum is now on the list of casualties. Bingham spent $1.3 million, a quarter of his inheritance, building the clinic. His plan was to use his money just to get it going, and then sustain it with a combination of clients who could pay out-of-pocket and grants to subsidize meager insurance reimbursements for those who couldn't. It didn't work on either side. In January, the day program and supplementary services shut down. Bingham and Morrissey continue to see some clients for individual therapy. Cooper is looking for an alternative day program for her young client.

"The system makes it hard for all mental health practitioners and clinics to survive," Bingham says. "If you add in our perspective on top of that, it just makes it that much harder."

Bingham is sad and frustrated, but says he's not completely discouraged. He's been talking to administrators of the state's Mental Health Services Act, the 2004 voter-approved program that taxes top earners to pay for improvements to county mental health services; he wants them to support alternative treatment approaches like his. He's continuing with his radio show, and thinking about how to rebuild Full Spectrum.