Synopsis: The Doctor is forced to confront some painful memories.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of how difficult it can be for the Logos-driven rational conscious ego to incorporate bits of material from the Eros-driven irrational unconscious into itself, in what Carl (C. G.) Jung called individuation, the process by which a psyche becomes more whole.
In “Latent Image” The Doctor becomes aware that his memory banks have been tampered with when he does a routine scan of Ensign Harry Kim and finds evidence of an operation he did on him which he does not remember. The Doctor reports this to the senior staff and secretly sets up a way to detect if anyone tampers with his memory banks again. He is shocked when none other than Captain Kathryn Janeway comes in to try to erase the memories that are beginning to return to The Doctor. Janeway explains to him that the reason that his memory banks were altered was to erase the memory of a time when two equally injured crewmembers were brought to him for treatment and he operated on Kim, who was his friend, instead of Ensign Ahni Jetal. Janeway explains that after the doctor saved his friend and Jetal died, he was so upset that he was unable to continue his duties, so it was decided that Jetal needed to be erased from his memory. But Janeway decides that now the time has come for The Doctor to deal with his feelings.
In this episode how The Doctor struggled with the idea that he could have been in error, or that his medical judgment was influenced by emotion, can be analogized to what the conscious ego goes through in the process of individuation when it acknowledges and accepts bits of material from the unconscious into itself. This is difficult for him because his programming, which here represents the conscious ego, believed itself to be infallible. This realization that his programming is not created the equivalent of a psychic wound. Janeway needed The Doctor to be operational, so she erased the memories of this pain, which can be compared to how a complex is created by the ego suppressing bits of the unconscious material that it cannot deal with. But just as The Doctor came across evidence that his programming had been altered, when the ego once again is forced to admit that there is a complex present, the pain only deepens. Here, when The Doctor is allowed to face his memories, it is painful, but it is also a necessary step to allow him to take his memories back. This can be compared to how it can be very difficult for the ego to accept that it is not perfect in our patriarchal, one-sided society, that strives for perfection. But once the ego can accept that it is not in total control of the psyche and that it is not infallible, then healing can begin and the psyche can become more whole.
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