Synopsis: Counselor Troi is kidnapped and forced to take part in a secret plan of Ambassador Spock.
In this episode Counselor Deanna Troi wakes up to find a face in the mirror that is not her own in a place that she does not recognize. This kidnapping and involuntary transformation can be seen as a physical manifestation of what it feels like to be in the grips of a complex. The complex being a concept from depth psychology and refers to the psychic container which contains bits of unconscious material and is able to bring them into the awareness of the conscious ego.
Carl (C. G.) Jung described complexes as “feeling toned,” meaning that an individual will know one is in the grips of one because of how one feels. That one cannot help oneself from acting and reacting when the complex controls one’s rational ego through the power of the bits of unconscious material.
In this episode, when Troi awakes to find an alien face in the mirror, she is then told that she has been kidnapped and is part of a plot to save Romulan dissidents from persecution by getting them to Federation space. At first, Troi resists and then shows hesitancy, but then she realizes that her very life depends on changing her way of being into something that appears to include Romulan traits. As the episode progresses, her connection to the blood-thirsty but necessary ways she is forced to emulate becomes stronger, as she has to deal with unexpected struggles along the way. This is similar to how one’s conscious ego may first deny the existence of the bits of unconscious material found in a complex, but then comes to understand that the only way to move forward is to integrate the bits of unconscious material into itself, thereby becoming stronger, and the psyche becoming more whole.
On another level, an analogy can be made wherein the Romulan dissidents can be seen as embodied bits of unconscious material, Romulan space as the unconscious, and Federation space consciousness. When the Federation is made aware that other dissidents can safely come through, it is analogous to the conscious ego realizing that once one complex has been dealt with, then other complexes, and the unconscious material they hold inside them, can also be acknowledged and integrated into itself.
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