Synopsis: Voyager’s crew must build a new vessel in order to retrieve a probe that has become marooned while Lt. Torres works through her psychic wounds.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of how a psychic wound can create what Carl (C. G.) Jung calls a complex, which is one way the Logos-driven rational conscious ego acknowledges and integrates bits of material from the Eros-driven irrational unconscious.
In “Extreme Risk” a Malon freighter tries to take one of Voyager’s probes, which causes Captain Kathryn Janeway to order it into the atmosphere of a gas giant to allude the alien ship. The freighter implodes when it tries to follow but Voyager is unable to retrieve the probe from where it is stuck. Lt. Tom Paris shows the senior crew his design for a new type of shuttle, which he calls the Delta Flyer. The crew is pressed into service to create the shuttle while another Malon freighter also tries to build its own vessel to again try to steal the probe. Meanwhile, Janeway and the crew notice that Lt. B’Elanna Torres is not herself. Also, she has been using the holodeck with safety protocols turned off, causing injury to herself. Commander Chakotay confronts her about her holodeck use and Torres shows him a program that simulates the killing of her Maquis comrades. After their conversation Torres returns to work and while on the Delta Flyer saves the lives of all on their mission to retrieve the probe.
In this episode Torres can be seen as experiencing both what happens when the rational ego tries to suppress bits of material from the unconscious and what happens when those bits of material resurface in a complex. A complex, being an opportunity for psychic healing and growth, but not necessarily painless. When Chakotay finally confronts Torres and makes her confront her feelings of abandonment and guilt, she can finally begin the process of healing. This is similar to what everyone goes through when a complex is acknowledged and the bits of unconscious psychic material are integrated into the conscious ego, to make it stronger and the psyche more whole.
mydailysoultrek 