Synopsis: Commander Chakotay is psychically damaged when an alien intruder invades a shuttlecraft and then tries to take over Voyager.
This episode, although it is not a perfect analogy, can be seen as an illustration of different ways that the Logos-driven rational conscious ego responds to bits of material from the Eros-driven irrational unconscious, as defined by Carl (C. G.) Jung.
In “Cathexis” Commander Chakotay is severely psychically injured when a shuttlecraft encounters an alien non-corporeal entity, which then comes aboard Voyager in an effort to bring the vessel back to a dark-matter nebula, where its species can take over the bio-neural energy of her crew. However, because the alien is non-corporeal it must jump from corporeal crew member to another in order to operate the physical controls to bring the ship there. However, when all is lost, Chakotay’s unconscious will seems able to send the crew signals of how to escape this fate.
In this episode the collective unconscious can be analogized to the dark-matter nebula. In this nebula, non-corporeal aliens live, which can be compared to archetypes, what Jung might define as patterns of existence. The crew on the Voyager, embodying the energy of the rational conscious ego, fights hard against the non-corporeal aliens, but to no effect. Yet they are open to and receive messages from Chakotay’s psyche, which they give meaning to, and following them are able to escape from the nebula. This is much like what happens when the rational conscious ego acknowledges bits of material from the irrational unconscious and integrates it into itself in order to become stronger and make the psyche more whole. This, as I have stated before, is the teaching from depth psychology.
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