Synopsis: Retired Admiral Picard and the crew of the La Sirena arrive at the Artifact just as Dr. Asha learns her true identity.
This episode can be seen as an illustrations of the healing process that can happen when the rational conscious ego stops suppressing the irrational elements of the unconscious.
In “The Impossible Box” Dr. Soji Asha tells the Romulan spy identified as Narek, about her reoccurring dreams. Narek sees these dreams as a way to access the unconscious knowledge she holds about where the rest of the synthetics are located. Information he needs, so that they can be destroyed. Retired Admiral Jean-Luc Picard and the La Sirena crew arrive at the Artifact, but only Picard is given permission to come aboard to visit the Borg Reclamation Project located there. Once aboard the Artifact, Picard is reunited with Hugh, the former Borg, or xB, that is now the executive director of the project. Hugh shows Picard how the xB were recovering after their Borg implants had been removed. Meanwhile, elsewhere on the Artifact, Narek was taking Asha through a traditional Romulan meditation practice, the Zhal Makh, in order to gain access to the knowledge in her unconscious. Narek is successful in retrieving the information and then he tries to kill Asha with a radiation bomb. But it is too late, Asha’s strengths have been activated and she escapes to find Picard.
In this episode, the Zhal Makh that Narek uses to gain access to unconscious memories held by Asha can be compared to methods used by analysists in analytical psychology. The purpose of analytical psychology is to allow bits of unconscious material to be acknowledged by the conscious ego and then integrated into one’s personality to make the psyche more whole. The xBs being treated through the Borg Reclamation Project, trying to heal what is left of their human body after the Borg implants have been removed, can be compared to how the instinctual bits of unconscious material may feel during this process, when no longer suppressed by the conscious ego, yet still needing to be supported by the conscious ego. Both illustrate how the process is not easy, but rewarding to partake in.
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