Star Trek: Picard – Season 2, Episode 9: “Hide and Seek”

Synopsis: While the rest of the crew try to evade the Borg troops, Dr. Jurati offers an alternative solution to the Borg Queen.

This episode can be seen as an illustration of Carl (C. G.) Jung’s concept of individuation, the process by which one becomes an individual.

In “Hide and Seek” the Borg troops, now led by Dr. Adam Soong, who has decided to assist the Borg Queen in her efforts, try to hunt down the crew and Tallinn on the grounds of Chateau Picard. The crew having separated in an effort to retake the La Sirena from the Borg Queen. Admiral Jean-Luc Picard and Tallinn flee to the tunnels beneath the chateau to try to escape the Borg troops. When they enter the tunnels Picard is filled with memories of the past, including the one that he has not permitted himself to remember before. How when he was young, he unlocked the door to the room where his mother had been held by his father, only to see her hang herself. Thus making sense of his deepest fear and his drive to try to save others. Meanwhile, aboard the La Sirena, the Borg Queen injures Seven of Nine, but Dr. Agnes Jurati, or the essence of what remains of her, prevents the Borg Queen, who has taken over Jurati’s body, from killing her. Jurati tries to reason with the Borg Queen, telling her that her drive to assimilate the galaxy comes from the same feelings of loneliness and fear that she accuses Jurati of possessing. Jurati offers an alternative: what if instead of assimilating weaker species, they try to help them instead? That just as Seven of Nine decided to help humanity using what remains of her Borg implants, they could create a universe of Seven of Nines. The Borg Queen saves Seven of Nine’s life in exchange for the La Sirena.

In the episode, the  conversation between Jurati and the Borg Queen, where Jurati speaks rationally to the Borg Queen about her emotions, can be compared to when the conscious ego acknowledges bits of unconscious material into itself. When Jurati and the Borg Queen make an agreement to not fight each other, but to work together to make the galaxy a better place, this can be analogized to when the conscious ego integrates bits of unconscious material into itself to become stronger and make the psyche more whole. This transformation is what Jung called the individuation process.