Synopsis: Lt. Commander Data rescues a young boy, the only survivor from a damaged vessel, and to help him through his pain the boy emulates him.
This episode actually uses a term that Carl (C.G.) Jung uses in his theories on depth psychology, enantiodromia. Counselor Deanna Troi explains to Captain Jean-Luc Picard that this means going to the opposite of. Jung normally uses the phrase running counter to in defining the term, but the meaning is essentially the same. And while Troi tells Picard that this is a phase that the young boy, Timothy, is going through in processing the pain of losing his family, in depth psychology, which is defined by its study of the unconscious, this term refers to a more ongoing process, that we constantly move between two opposite poles in our psyche in order to become more whole.
In “Hero Worship” Timothy is in this opposite state, that of emulating an android, in an effort to get through a time in his life when pain is too difficult to process. Choosing to take on the façade of an android, who cannot feel emotions, was his way of coping until he was strong enough to deal with the pain of the loss of his parents and his way of life. And as Troi advised, when he was ready to deal with the pain, he once again returned to being a boy. This is just one of the ways in which the psyche is able to heal itself, and in return to make an individual stronger through the process.
Original post created 6 October 2021
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