Synopsis: The crew of the Enterprise comes across one of its own shuttlecrafts from six hours in the future.
In “Time Squared” the danger that the Enterprise and her crew face is that of a time vortex, can be seen as how an individual experiences the enantiodromia that occurs in the process of individuation. Individuation is what Depth Psychologist Carl (C. G.) Jung calls the way in which a person incorporates bits of the unconscious into the conscious ego. An enantiodromia is the running counter to, or the way that anything moves from one end of the spectrum to the other and then back again.
In the episode, what really upsets Captain Jean-Luc Picard is the idea that in the rip in time six hours in the future that he would be the sole survivor of the Enterprise’s destruction, and that the reason he was still alive was because he was on a shuttlecraft instead of on the bridge when the vessel exploded. That he would abandon ship is unthinkable.
However, as the Enterprise comes closer to the time of Picard’s duplicate, the current Picard learns that his duplicate left the ship because something in the time vortex was wanting to attack him, and him alone. The only way for the ship to survive was to leave it. So, Picard allows his duplicate to leave the ship and the Enterprise is saved. Picard had to allow what would normally be the exact opposite of what he believed himself capable of in order to do what was required. Going in the exact opposite direction than he normally would, saved the day.
Sometimes in our psyche, we have to allow feelings or actions opposite to what our conscious ego would normally do, in order to avoid becoming one-sided. And in depth psychology, being one-sided is the most psychically damaging thing, leaving it rigid and unable to grow, or to become more whole. Helping the psyche become more whole is the continuing mission of depth psychology.
Original post created 7 July 2021
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