Ep020:

The Psychology of Dark Tourism

A diagnosis of end-stage liver disease, a marriage under strain, and a therapist who chose not to look away — but to walk straight into the world’s darkest places. From standing alone inside an Auschwitz gas chamber to the bone-lined corridors of the Paris Catacombs and the quiet weight of Hiroshima’s museum, psychotherapist and author Dr Chad Scott found himself drawn to places marked by humanity’s deepest suffering. Not out of morbid curiosity, but because something in those spaces helped him survive his own darkest moments.

In this conversation, Chad unpacks what he calls reflective dark tourism: visiting sites of historical trauma with reverence as a way to confront fear, anxiety, and mortality head-on. Drawing on his work as a prison therapist and counsellor, he explains why these places function as moral classrooms — where memento mori becomes practical psychology, and facing what we avoid can build resilience, expand emotional intelligence, and restore perspective. It’s a challenging, deeply human episode about suffering, healing, and why reckoning — not avoidance — can quietly change the way we live.