Synopsis: A Cardassian dissident arrives on Deep Space Nine so that he will be with Major Kira when he dies.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of what happens when bits of unconscious material from the Eros-driven irrational unconscious that are held in a complex that had been suppressed before, erupt again, so that the Logos-driven rational conscious ego must now acknowledge and integrate them into itself.
“Ties of Blood and Water” begins with the Cardassian dissident, Tekeny Ghemor, arriving on Deep Space Nine. Ghemor having once kidnapped Major Kira Nerys and treated her as his daughter. Kira greets him with open arms, as if he is her father, not knowing that he is dying. Ghemor explains to her a Cardassian custom of transferring information to one’s family members, and that he has come to the station to perform this ritual with her. Memories of how Kira’s biological father died alone while she went off to seek vengeance on the Cardassians that injured him resurface. Kira then learns that Ghemor was part of a massacre on her world and refuses to continue to see him. But when Dr. Julian Bashir urges her to see him before he dies, and Kira changes her mind and goes to be with Ghemor when he passes. When he does, she buries him on Bajor.
In this episode, the flashbacks that Kira experiences can be analogized to a complex that lets in bits of material from the unconscious into the awareness of the conscious ego. A psychic wound, such as not being there for your father when he dies, is what can create a complex. It also seems that Kira has tried to suppress her feelings about this, but once she is in the same situation with Ghemor, they erupt with even deeper intensity. That in the end she chooses to face her emotions and be with Ghemor when he dies will allow her to begin to heal the wound at the center of her complex.
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