Bad Therapist

Exposure collection

By: Evan Wright

Narrated by: Neil Shah

Length: 4 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

Inside the biggest scandal in the history of America’s $40 billion drug recovery industry: a predatory Malibu rehab guru - and the fearless female patient who exposed his empire of deceit.

Chris Bathum was a respected therapist, addiction specialist, and founder of one of the fastest-growing rehabilitation chains in America. But Bathum was a total fraud: he was a homicidal meth-head with a history of sexually abusing his patients, scamming insurance companies, and eliminating whistle-blowers. Like Rose Stahl. But this intended victim would be his last. Stahl would risk her life to bring down the monster she and so many other people in need had once trusted for their salvation.

Evan Wright’s Bad Therapist is part of Exposure, a collection of six incredible and true stories of American double lives from millionaire CEOs and suburban teens to undercover investigators and scam artists - all for whom secrets are a way of life. Each piece can be listened to in a single astonished sitting.

©2019 Evan Wright (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Eye opening book about the failed rehab system.

This book blew my mind. I still see some of the things going on with rehab centers that are described in this book. Amazing that there was some kind of justice paid out to one of the masterminds of the fraud. Feels as if nothing changed after that in the industry.

Extremely Interesting, a must "listen"

I had heard some stories about this man, "the Bad Therapist". This book definitely brings them more to life. Another extremely well written book, one that can be almost pictured in my minds eye.
Kept my interest line after line. I will definitely be searching for some more of this story in the news, maybe fill in some blanks. Even though this book seemed extremely thorough.
It opens the eyes of people as too, at one point, how almost easy it was for people to take advantage of insurance companies, but most of all the patients. Which is a shame. As someone who is in recovery, we put basically all our trust & faith into thearpy, treatment centers etc. And to abuse that is extremely detrimental to one's recovery.

Narrator's voices for characters were...

...awful, especially women's. I became distracted. They all came off as dippy, airheads. It was condescending. Otherwise enjoyed this take on the industry and the toll it takes on its victims.

Bad Narrator

This was an interesting story, one I was completely unfamiliar with. What would have made it much more enjoyable would have been a different narrator. The narration here sounded like a parody of what Christopher Batham’s voice sounded like. So irritating

Couldn’t get into it

I think my issue was the narration, but I couldn’t get into this. It was boring.

An RX for the rehab industry!!!

I'm a huge fan of this award winning-journalist's work, and I'm a very busy college professor during finals week, so I was very happy to be able to buy and audio version of this, as well as one to read. I closed my eyes and listened and could not stop until the story was done.
If you've read his book, "Generation Kill," (or seen the HBO version of the book, by the same name), you know what I mean. Wright provides through investigative reporting (I believe he won a Columbia School of Journalism Award, among other awards) on serious subjects, AND he knows how to touch the funny bone. I believe he locates in humor the source of human compassion, pleasure, and enjoyment, even the relief of stress in a time of war or when all the walls are falling down, as they do in this story. If you are like I am, you know countless people who have been affected by drug or alcohol addition. Like me, you may know people who have died from it, as my mother did. And so, this story is particularly compelling for me. It's about a con artist operating a multi-million dollar rehab scam in whom people entrust their lives and the lives of those they love. I sincerely hope and believe this book will change the rehab industry (what a word, industry, when it is supposed to be a health field to free people from the grip of a deadly disease). I believe Wright's newest book will have a huge impact on changing that industry. If you or anyone you know has been touched by addiction, I highly recommend this book. Anyone considering going to a rehab really SHOULD read this. Be informed, be aware, be picky. "Bad Therapist" has its heroes (the lovely sounding and brilliant Rose Stahl), its victims (how sad I am about the sisters from Ohio; coincidentally my mother was from there, she who died of untreated alcoholism); and its people whose lives and views hang in the balance..... and Chris Batham, its terrifying bad guy, a crook and con man, a "family man" who looks like he couldn't hurt a fly. In ways Wright describes so well -- drawing a picture of who the criminal element emerged -- the criminal Chris Batham convinces a great many very smart people to rely on him for the care of themselves or their loved ones. I wanted to post this tonight, even though I'm busy, because I think this book might actually help someone decide how to determine what kind of rehab to use, if they or someone they know is going to go that route. Our Country (and the world) is suffering from Opioid addiction. It's an epidemic. It's touching almost everyone in some way, be it through someone they know, themselves, or someone with whom they work.... So I hope they read this book. I would have done anything to get help for my mother, but I would NOT have wanted her to be treated in a rehab facility of this kind, and according to Wright the rehab business is a highly unregulated "industry," in many areas and ways. Yet people really do need help. There have to be reforms. The problems are tragically humanized and made real through the portraits and narrative writes, here.

I SOOOO wanted to love this book

The narrator was terrible. There’s no other word for it. It’s like he was trying to sound like a hard-hitting investigative reporter on Dateline NBC, and failing miserably. His attempt to do the “voices” of some of the characters in the book were laughable. And I’m pretty sure he mixed a couple of characters up at one point.

That being said, the story was interesting but not nearly as compelling as it could have been. Also, For a reason I still can’t figure out, they jumped forward it to the guy being in jail, and one chapter, then backtracked in the next. The break in chronology made no sense and it didn’t benefit the storyline at all. Whoever wrote this should have listened to “Son” by Jack Olsen first. He pulls off the dual chronology much more effectively.

Interesting and entertaining true story!

This story about the scams dealing with rehabs and sober living houses in southern CA is written so well. The storyline could be boring except this author is so well informed and writes with a comic sense that turns this story into real entertainment. I didn't care for the voices the narrator uses for each character. Kind of irritating but not so bad that I stopped listening.

Average Story

This was the first in the Exposure series (free with amazon prime). I read others first, which I’m glad I did, as this is my least favorite. I listened to it on audio and when the narrator did most voices, it grated on me, especially in the middle of sentences when he switched voices. The therapist story was okay, but I was more interested in the development of sober houses and how the system is conned.

Deep reporting as Sunday papers once did

Bad people scam the system, steal too much, and the windows are left open for others to discreetly continue the looting