The Psychology Behind Our Pain, Patterns, and Healing With Chad Scott
In this powerful episode of the Let’s Get Naked Podcast, Anne Karber sits down with Chad Scott, Ph.D.—licensed psychotherapist, author, seasoned explorer, and longtime student of the human psyche—for a conversation that moves through anxiety, emotional intelligence, drinking culture, spirituality, trauma, and an unexpected pathway to healing: dark tourism.
At first glance, dark tourism—visiting places marked by tragedy and human suffering—might sound morbid. But Chad reframes it as something else entirely: a catalyst for presence, perspective, and empathy. In a world trained to numb, scroll, and escape discomfort, this episode challenges the listener to consider a radical idea: sometimes healing requires looking directly at what hurts—inside us and around us—without flinching.
When Anxiety Becomes a Lifetime Companion
Chad opens with candor about his lifelong struggle with anxiety—how it showed up early, how it shaped his internal world, and how easily high-functioning anxiety can hide behind achievement and competence.
As a psychotherapist with decades of experience, Chad understands anxiety clinically. But this episode isn’t clinical. It’s human. He speaks to the exhausting reality of living with a brain that constantly scans for threat—even when life appears “fine” from the outside.
Anne holds space for the deeper truth many people avoid admitting: anxiety isn’t just a mental experience; it’s a full-body pattern. And when that pattern goes unmanaged, people don’t just suffer—they cope.
Drinking Culture as a Socially Approved Escape Hatch
One of the most confrontational themes in the episode is how society normalizes alcohol as an acceptable way to manage stress, fear, grief, and anxiety.
Chad and Anne unpack the cultural hypocrisy: the same culture that labels anxiety a “mental health crisis” also glamorizes drinking as the solution. Happy hour. Wine nights. “You deserve it.” Coping becomes community—and dependency gets disguised as normal adulthood.
Chad shares the turning point when he confronted the truth about his habits—not with shame, but with honesty. He breaks down how alcohol doesn’t eliminate anxiety; it postpones it—and often intensifies it over time by dulling emotional processing and disrupting regulation.
The episode doesn’t moralize. It invites self-audit:
What are you using alcohol to avoid feeling?
What becomes possible when you stop numbing?
IQ vs. EQ: Why Emotional Intelligence Changes Everything
The conversation pivots into the difference between IQ and EQ, and why emotional intelligence—not raw intellect—is often the determining factor in relationship health, resilience, leadership, and long-term fulfillment.
Chad explains that high IQ can help someone succeed academically or professionally, but EQ determines how someone:
navigates conflict
manages stress
tolerates discomfort
builds intimacy
processes pain without self-destruction
Anne reinforces this theme with her signature blunt clarity: emotional intelligence isn’t soft—it’s power. It’s what keeps people from repeating the same cycles with better vocabulary.
Empathy vs. Sympathy: The Line That Changes Relationships
A standout segment of the episode is Chad’s breakdown of empathy versus sympathy—a distinction that affects not only personal relationships, but how we respond to suffering in general.
Sympathy often stays at a distance. It can carry pity, discomfort, or even superiority.
Empathy is presence. It moves toward pain without needing to fix it or make it go away.
Chad argues that empathy is not just emotional—it’s neurological. It can be trained. And one of the most powerful training grounds, he suggests, is dark tourism.
Dark Tourism: Why Facing Human Suffering Rewires the Brain
This is where the episode becomes uniquely compelling.
Chad explains that visiting sites of profound human suffering—Hiroshima, Alcatraz, genocide memorials—activates a different part of the brain than typical leisure travel. Instead of escapism, it creates forced presence. You can’t scroll your way out of history. You can’t “positive mindset” your way around devastation.
Dark tourism, Chad suggests, expands empathy because it confronts you with the weight of humanity—what humans are capable of, what humans endure, and what humans survive.
And paradoxically, by witnessing external darkness, many people begin to process their internal darkness with more compassion. It becomes a mirror:
If humans can endure this, maybe I can endure my own pain.
If suffering is universal, maybe I’m not broken—just human.
If trauma leaves marks, maybe healing can too.
Spirituality, Trauma, and the Evolution of Belief
The episode also explores Chad’s spiritual journey, including experiences that many would consider profound—such as being blessed by the Pope—and the eventual decision to leave Catholicism.
This portion isn’t framed as rebellion; it’s framed as growth. Chad shares how belief systems intersect with trauma, identity, and emotional needs. Sometimes faith becomes a foundation. Sometimes it becomes a container that no longer fits.
Anne and Chad discuss spirituality not as a label, but as a lived relationship with meaning, responsibility, and truth—especially when life brings illness, divorce, anxiety, and loss.
Resilience Isn’t a Quote—It’s a Practice
Chad’s background brings weight to the conversation: over 25 years in mental health, university teaching, multiple published books, and personal life experiences that shaped his grit—illness, a transplant, divorce, and ongoing anxiety management.
He’s not selling “quick healing.” He’s describing a life built through disciplined self-awareness, emotional honesty, and choosing growth over numbing.
His work in transformative travel isn’t escapism—it’s exposure therapy for the soul. A reminder that perspective is earned, not posted.
