Tripp Hijacks Religion on the Mind with Dr. Dan Koch

Dan Koch just finished a seven-and-a-half-year process and came out the other side a fully licensed clinical psychologist. So I did what any friend would do — took over his podcast, gave him a week off from prepping, and made him answer every question I've been saving. He did zero prep on purpose. What we got is the conversation you have with someone you've known long enough to skip the throat-clearing: what existential therapy actually gave him clinically, why permission structures are the hidden architecture of both clergy and therapy work, why he's moved from the big abstract questions toward attention and embodiment, and what it means that a psychologist with ADHD is trying to work out how attention relates to love. Plus: the oral history of the Enneagram I am definitely writing, why he'd take the drum stool for Against Me! on the White Crosses tour, and Lars Ulrich in Moscow as the runner-up. And there's a whole extra hour of this — music, movies, punk as a theology of human dignity, and the story of when Rob Bell hijacked a Homebrewed episode live.

You can WATCH the conversation on YouTube

Get the extra hour

This conversation keeps going for about another hour, and the second half is the part where we stop behaving. Dan's theory of punk's irreducible amateurism as a kind of human dignity. The psychology of music project he's building — endorphins, synchronicity, mosh pits at fifteen, and what it has to do with what mainline worship gave up. Byung-Chul Han's hell of the same, and Dan cutting my doom with whole milk. Robert Eggers. The Refused frontman walking backstage before "New Noise" to tell my thirteen-year-old do you want to know why I do this? And my ongoing public campaign to get Five Iron Frenzy to play Theology Beer Camp.

Join the Process This Substack at processthis.substack.com to get the full extended conversation, plus every episode ad-free, bonus content, and the classes. It's how the podcast keeps running, and it's where the good stuff lives.

About our guest and his shows

Dr. Dan Koch is a newly licensed clinical psychologist based in Bellingham, Washington, specializing in religious change and deconstruction, working from a cognitive-existential orientation. Before psychology, he spent a decade in an emo band and a decade as a commercial composer. He hosts Religion on the Mind (formerly You Have Permission), on psychology and religion, and Pretty Good Vibrations, h