Geordi La Forge: Engineering to the Bridge. Captain, there appears to be some sort of device connected to the warp core. Looks like it is labeled BARCLAY. What the hell is he trying to do to the Enterprise?
barclay is such a fucking creep. and the way the crew responded to the whole simulation thing was ridiculous. (I can’t imagine any therapist ever being like ‘you have a simulation of me in which we’re a thing’ and being like “yeah, I can still provide therapy for you.”
Although I agree … that is making assumptions of a situation based on our modern understanding and level of culture
In the 24th Century … culture, ideas, therapy and psychology will be a lot different than what we understand today.
In the Star Trek TNG future, it looks and sounds accepting and understanding of all sorts of things … but in the real world 24th Century that is yet to happen, it may or may not be as positive or negative as we would like to think. It will definitely be a lot different than to how we think now but to what extent - we don’t know.
Think about it this way. How did people think about sexuality and sexual fantasies of others 100 years ago? 200 years ago? People and mobs would have probably gathered around and wanted to either severely punish the person or put them to death. We look down at that social mentality now as backward and uneducated … in 300 years our descendants may think of us today in the same way.
What we think is normal today in our world won’t be normal in 200, 300, 500 years in the future … but that isn’t to say that things will be better or worse … they will just be way different that the way we see things today.
Who knows, in 300 years they might not think of things like Barclay’s fantasies as anything serious and people might just look at it all in an open way and help him overcome those unrealistic fantasies … or they might create a society where they deem individuals like this as unfit for whole and want to ‘decommission’ this individual from the collective.
Ignoring that he was sexually harassing Troi, for the moment, there is a massive conflict of interest that wouldn’t go just because it’s in the 24th century.
Even if (and especially if,) Troi was interested in helping Barclay, then the best thing for him would have been to start seeing another therapist who he could engage without conflicting emotions.
As for the sexual harassment… you’re right. They could be okay with that. And I don’t think that’s utopian. When your sexual fantasies start involving other people without their consent, that’s a problem.
… like I said, we don’t know how they will treat things like that in the 24th century … maybe they’ll just politely ask him to leave the ship … by opening an air lock and let him go on his way.
But again: as the object of his obsession, she cannot provide therapy in a healthy manner.
Even if she was cool with it because all you say, it’s only going to feed into the problem.
But I’m fairly sure that a society that values personal liberty, equality and freedom necessarily cannot accept something like this.
And, let’s be clear here: she was quite angry- one might say pissed off- when the she saw the recreation of her, making it clear that her social norms, at least, were violated.
Given that there were upwards of 1000 crewmen, chances are there was more than 1 counselor aboard. Let alone without any blatant conflict of interest.
Considering her title is “Ship’s Counsellor”, I don’t think so. That makes it sound like each ship gets one counsellor.
She was also a Lt Cmdr, so is probably the head of a group of counselors for a ship that size. Just like Dr Crusher is a chief medical officer and the primary doc on board, but not the only doc.
It might be like how there is only ever one helmsman on duty at any given time. Sure, there are dozens of crew members who are trained for the task, and the captain can order any of them to take over as helmsman when needed. But there is only ever one person at a time who is considered the helmsman.
Managing that many minds, she’d likely need a ship’s counselor’s counselor.
Who counsels the counsellors?
All I know is that whoever is at the top of the modern-day counselor pyramid is someone that is exposed to such gamma-level psychological damage, that they’re likely a real-life bhudda, sin-eater, immortal, or being from a higher plane of existence. They are capable of processing a superhuman amount of mental refuse and yet still retain the will to go on.
If there were others, she surely would have had more support during the time she lost her empathic powers and didn’t know how to be a therapist anymore
I tend to judge that episode harshly because of the way she reacted, but that would be very disorienting for anyone to suddenly lose a crucial sense they had
Maybe it’s like a title they all get, like how some car places call everyone vice president of sales so all the customers feel important.
yup.
or the Federation really doesn’t care about mental health and only assigned Troi because, well, they had to. I’m not sure which is worse.
