Synopsis: Sub-Commander T’Pol is ordered to return to Vulcan, but Captain Archer has other ideas.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of a complex arising from an ancestral wound.
“Shadows of P’Jem” begins at Starfleet Headquarters where Vulcan Ambassador Soval communicates his people’s displeasure with the destruction of the Vulcan monastery at P’Jem by the Andorians after Enterprise’s visit there. Soval tells Admiral Forrest that he has been recalled to Vulcan and that the Vulcan-Starfleet joint mission is over. Forrest then alerts Captain Jonathan Archer on Enterprise that a Vulcan vessel will be rendezvousing with his ship in two days to take Sub-Commander T’Pol back to Vulcan. Archer in turn notifies T’Pol of this and is annoyed that T’Pol does not display an emotional response to this news. Archer decides to take T’Pol on one last away mission to the planet Coridan, where he has been invited to visit by their Chancellor. Unfortunately, Archer and T’Pol are abducted by dissidents. While they are being held captive Archer explains his feelings to T’Pol, that the Vulcans took something away from his father, and he is not going to let them take a valuable member of his crew away from him. Archer and T’Pol are rescued by a combined force of Vulcans, Andorians, and humans, but in the mission T’Pol takes a bullet for Sopek, the captain of the Vulcan vessel that was sent to retrieve her. Archer then convinces Sopek to try to change the Vulcan High Command on T’Pol’s behalf.
In this episode, when Archer learns that T’Pol is being sent back to Vulcan, he immediately feels as if something is being taken away from him by the Vulcans, just as the Vulcan’s took away his father’s dream of living to see the warp engine that he designed be built. Archer even admits to T’Pol these feelings. Uncontrollable feelings are a sign that a feeling-toned complex has been activated. In this case, the complex goes back to Archer’s father’s frustration at being stymied by the Vulcans. This can be seen as a complex arising out of ancestral trauma and perhaps even cultural trauma, if it was something more deeply felt by humanity in general toward the Vulcans. When one can acknowledge that a complex has multigeneration origins, it is just one more way to understand that complexes can be a route to self-knowledge, and in turn could lead to healing of ancestral wounds.
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