New Memoir on Dark Tourism by Psychotherapist Gains Strong Early Critical Praise

Dr. Chad Scott Transforms Encounters With Difficult Heritage Sites Into a Framework for Resilience and Emotional Recovery

HOYT LAKES, MN, UNITED STATES, December 11, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- In a time marked by trauma, disconnection, and collective grief, psychotherapist Dr. Chad Scott offers a bold and hopeful perspective on healing through some of the world’s most difficult histories.

His book, Beyond the Darkness: Transformative Journeys Through Dark Tourism, blends memoir, psychology, and travel writing as Scott explores challenging historic sites such as Auschwitz, Ground Zero, Hiroshima, the Paris Catacombs, and Eastern State Penitentiary. What began as personal collapse became a global search for meaning.

The book features a foreword by Dr. Philip Stone, widely regarded as the leading academic in the study of dark tourism and the Director of the Institute for Dark Tourism Research at the University of Lancashire. His contribution situates Scott’s work within the broader scholarly conversation on memory, ethics, and the purpose of visiting difficult heritage sites.

The book has received strong early acclaim.
Kirkus Reviews calls it “a powerful and gripping guided tour.”
San Francisco Book Review describes it as “a rare and unforgettable exploration.”
USA Today bestselling author KC Finn praises it as “a highly recommended must-read.”

It was also named one of the Top 100 Nonfiction Books of 2025 by the Non-Obvious Book Awards and selected as a Readers’ Favorite International Book Awards finalist.

Scott’s path to writing the book was forged through profound adversity — alcohol abuse, vasculitis, a full liver transplant, severe anxiety, and the collapse of his marriage. Yet in standing with reverence and deep empathy in places where history and human suffering converge, he found not despair, but clarity.

“When you stand where suffering actually happened, something inside you shifts,” Scott says.
“It forces you to see your own pain differently. These places taught me how to live again.”

The emotional core of the book unfolds inside the crematorium at Auschwitz, where Scott experienced a moment of reckoning that reframed both history and his own survival. Readers and reviewers have connected deeply with the book’s balance of vulnerability, insight, and global perspective.

Drawing on two decades in mental health, Scott translates these experiences into powerful reflections on resilience, empathy, and the universality of healing — establishing himself as an emerging voice in reflective travel and modern psychology.

About Dr. Chad Scott

Dr. Chad Scott is a psychotherapist, educator, and bestselling author based in northern Minnesota. His work bridges travel, history, and psychology to explore how encounters with difficult places can deepen resilience and personal understanding.

Media Contact:

Dr. Chad Scott
Website: www.DrChadScott.com

Facebook: @ChadScottAuthor
Email: cscott@mesabacare.com

Beyond the Darkness is available now wherever books are sold.
For speaking engagements, interviews, or event inquiries, visit DrChadScott.com.

Chad Scott
Author
+1 218-290-7301
cscott@mesabacare.com

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