Synopsis: Chief Engineer La Forge is taken hostage after the Enterprise responds to a distress signal from an alien vessel while Captain Picard and Ensign Crusher are on a shuttlecraft mission to Starbase 515.
Early on in the episode “Samaritan Snare” Dr. Katherine Pulaski accuses Captain Jean-Luc Picard of having an ego, which of course he, like all of us, do have, but what she was really meaning, in depth psychological terms, is not that he had an ego, but that his ego was inflated. Inflation, in depth psychological terms means that the conscious ego identifies to much with the power of the unconscious. Here, Picard’s ego was identifying too closely to a god-like feeling of superiority and was unwilling to submit to a heart operation on the Enterprise because he did not want to appear anything less than invincible to his crew.
Later in the episode while Picard and Ensign Wesley Crusher have left in the shuttlecraft for Starbase 515 and Commander William Riker is left in command of the Enterprise, Riker’s ego also becomes inflated. This occurs in his reaction to the Pakleds, a race that he feels is too weak to be of any danger to the Enterprise. He retains this feeling even when Counselor Deanna Troi warns him that the Pakleds are not who they seem to be and that Chief Engineer Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge, who was transported over to the alien vessel, is in danger. Riker ignores her and La Forge is taken hostage. Later it is also discovered that the Pakleds were faking being helpless and in need of assistance.
Both of these reactions are analogous to what happens when the conscious ego becomes inflated in what Carl (C. G.) Jung called the process of individuation, which is the way in which the conscious ego incorporates bits of material from the unconscious, to become more whole. The unconscious material is powerful, and inflation, in which the ego identifies with a new-found energy, is necessary to give momentum to the process, but if indulged too long, can make an individual’s ego one sided and vulnerable, just as Picard and Riker experienced their vulnerability in this episode.
Original post created 12 July 2021
mydailysoultrek 