Synopsis: Captain Janeway tends to the needs of three crew members that are not performing up to Starfleet standards.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of how the Logos-driven rational conscious ego can try to use bits of material it has acknowledged and integrated into itself from the Eros-driven irrational unconscious.
In “Good Shepherd” Seven of Nine does an efficiency review of Voyager and her crew. Seven identifies three crew members Mortimer Harren, William Telfer, and Tal Celes, who are not performing up to Starfleet standards. Captain Kathryn Janeway decides to take the three on an away mission on the Delta Flyer, as none of them have had this opportunity. Janeway explains why she is doing this to Seven by telling her the tale of the good shepherd. On the away mission, the Delta Flyer is attacked and suffers damage. Then Telfer suddenly disappears and returns with an alien entity inside him. When the entity emerges Janeway believes it is trying to communicate, but Harren disobeys a direct order and shoots it before it can. To try to make up for this error, Harren takes an escape pod and sends it toward the aliens that are attacking them, in order to allow the Flyer to escape. Afterwards, the crew all wake up safely in Voyager’s Sick Bay. Janeway telling Commander Chakotay that the good shepherd ran into a wolf while tending her flock.
In this episode, when Janeway tells Seven that she is taking the three underperforming crew members with her instead of more efficient individuals, Janeway explains her reasoning by telling Seven the tale of the good shepherd. This can be analogized to when the conscious ego tries to use bits of unconscious material that it has acknowledged and integrated into itself to address an issue. But since the conscious ego and the unconscious have different ways of operating, the result is not quite what Janeway anticipated. This is illustrated by Janeway explaining what happened to Chakotay by telling him the good shepherd ran into a wolf. And this is likely how her ego felt when it came in contact with something more powerful, the unconscious. The unconscious here being described as a wolf.
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