Synopsis: The crew of the U.S.S. Titan come to the rescue of Admiral Picard, Captain Riker, Dr. Crusher and Jack Crusher.
This episode can be seen as illustrations of the hero complex. A complex, in the teachings of Carl (C. G.) Jung, being one of the ways in which unconscious material is made accessible to the conscious ego.
In “Disengage,” aboard the S.S. Eleos XII, Admiral Jean-Luc Picard, Captain William T. Riker, Jack Crusher, and Dr. Beverly Crusher, who is in a statis-pod, are confronted by an enormous ship, the Shriker, commanded by Captain Vadic. Vadic wants Jack Crusher. On the U.S.S. Titan, the crew becomes aware of the situation, but Captain Liam Shaw initially refuses to attempt a rescue. That is until Commander Annika Hansen tells him that he can either go down in history as a hero who rescued heroes or as the person who let two legends die. Shaw then orders the Titan to assist, and Picard, Riker, Crusher, and Dr. Crusher are beamed aboard. Picard is then informed that Crusher is his son. Meanwhile on M’talas Prime, Commander Raffaela (Raffi) Musiker disobeys orders to try to locate those responsible for the destruction of a Starfleet recruitment center. She contacts the father of her son, Jae Hwang, to do this. Hwang asks her to choose between reuniting with her son or to meet with Sneed, whom she suspects is involved in the plot to destroy the recruitment center. She chooses to meet Sneed and only escapes alive when she is rescued by her handler, Worf.
In this episode there are several examples of individuals whose actions are influenced by the hero complex. Picard and Riker both feel that they must come to the aid of Dr. Crusher and her son. Hansen is impelled to try to help them and awakens the hero complex in Shaw by reminding him why he joined Starfleet, which is an organization itself often portrayed as heroic. Crusher also feels that he was justified an any action that he may have taken, because he was doing it in heroic efforts to save those whom Starfleet has forgotten about. He also volunteers to hand himself over to Vadic. Musiker feels that she alone must go after whoever destroyed the Starfleet recruitment center, and Worf felt compelled to come to her aid. All these situations can be interpreted as illustrations of action compelled by feeling-toned complexes, because one cannot help but act in a certain way when one’s ego is overwhelmed by a bit of unconscious material. But Jung also felt that complexes were a way to gain self-knowledge, and when acknowledged and integrated into the conscious ego, the ego is made stronger and the psyche more whole.
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