Synopsis: The crew of the Enterprise is stuck in a repeating time loop of the vessel’s destruction until they figure out a way to escape it.
This episode is an illumination of the idea of what it is like to be stuck in what Carl (C. G.) Jung would call a feeling-toned complex, a term from depth psychology. The complex itself being the container, or vessel, by which unconscious psychic matter can arise to consciousness in bits, that can either be acknowledged and integrated into the conscious ego, to become stronger and more whole, or can be suppressed until a later time. This episode illustrates what happens when acknowledging and integrating the bits of unconscious matter is not done, and the bits are suppressed for a later time.
In “Cause and Effect” the Enterprise is caught in a time loop that causes it to relive its destruction over and over. Eventually, some of the crew realize what is happening and try to change the cycle of events. They eventually do, and the ship escapes destruction.
At the end of the episode, we learn that the Enterprise has been stuck in this loop for seventeen days, whereas another ship has been mired in the time loop for over eighty years and would still be stuck if not for the Enterprise. This is also illustrative of how sometimes it takes a while to acknowledge the unconscious bits found in a complex, and sometimes it can only be done with outside assistance.
Original post created 14 October 2021
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