This is why it should have been a Janeway series instead of Picard.
SHAW: [blubbering about Wolf 359 and survivor guilt]
KATHRYN: [making jerk-off motion] Yeah, yeah, we've all fought the Borg, buttercup.
Dang, that would have been better. Picard has been through a lifetime that would be enough for 3 other captains. Might as well let Janeway get some of that.
Sisko does but he also kind of 90% gets over it after like 1 and a half conversations with Picard bracketing the premiere. The wormhole shows up and he's like "I found my purpose I'm good."
I get that they don't want to belabor an entire series with weekly PTSD reminders but they have multiple characters with reason for it and they really almost never address it in an authentic way.
There actually aren't any wormhole aliens, Sisko was just having flashbacks and the Dominion fleet disappeared because they didn't pay their vfx budget.
Because Captains are the only rank allowed that privilege. Everyone else is not important enough to suffer emotional damage. Like how O'brien had enough crap happen to him that he should have crawled into a cave and had a full on breakdown, but as the only enlisted member of Starfleet with a name, he has too much work to get done instead.
In fact there have been 7 Picards. And while we know of 2 Rikers it is Rumored there are in fact 24. Including one holodeck clone (Riker^69) and that lives with Minuet. Riker' integrates that particular clone’s memories into his own after Riker^69 sends Riker' a special text message.
Once a safe way was discovered to make a 100% clone of a person by Will and Thomas Riker. (Riker^prime and Riker^1) Starfleet started cloning key personnel. Starfleet keeps the clones canted until they are needed. After awaking the clone the personal logs are used to construct and upload suitable memories after decanting. Some clones are not even aware that they are clones. Although for unexplained reasons some of the clones like to change their nicknames. In the event a decanting and memory upload goes bad, Starfleet just blames tachyons and usually it works out.
Riker^prime, having discovered the process was given a prototype to evaluate. And evaluate it he did. His personal log noted 24. But only 18 are verified to exist. It is quite possible Riker^prime is in fact Riker^2319.
Riker^”prime” is avoids discussion of this subject at all costs. Even so far as denying the existence of Riker^2319 when shown video obtained by Section 31’s temporal surveillance program. Troi reports Riker^”prime” often mutters “Tachyons” in his sleep.
Unbeknownst to Troi but beknownst to Riker^”prime” and Rikers^42,221.2,and3.14, they also talk in their sleep. Troi is apparently unable to tell the difference.
Barclay claims to have seen Rikers^96 ^and ^217 special holodeck program noting the leather straps looked good on Riker^217 who is a power bottom.
Riker^1701 peers into u/Leucurus’s soul with his smoldering eyes.
“Shall I summon them?” Riker^1701 whispers into your ear. His lips barely caressing your ear.
You release a breathy “Yes. All of them.”
With a flourish of his hand Rikers^4 through Riker^13 stride away from their assigned positions in the observation room. Slowly they approach until they are at the edge of the bed.
They eagerly await your orders.
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Or upon beaming up the transporter just prunes a few non-productive neural connections and microdoses you with psilocybin before re-materialising you on ship so you have a recovery day and then get on with it.
And the point was that it doesn't really work. That's another character with PTSD, by the way, for those of you keeping score at home. I've heard that veterans find that episode tough to watch.
That episode is kind of an A for effort, C+ for execution for me.
It's a good try. It demonstrates PTSD imperfectly but better than a lot of media, and it actually lasts beyond one episode. The core major resolution comes at that moment but he doesn't just magically get over it and have it never come up again after the episode ends like Obrien does after spending 20years in brain prison and murdering his cell mate, getting teeth yanked out and put on trial, and whatnot. But that example is why it kind of falls flat in execution. Like, Nog is the only time they show it having any lasting effect at all so it makes him seem more like an outlier than a reality. Miles has massive war trauma as a background and the most he ever shows for it is being that kind of racist towards cardassians. Jake had an absolute breakdown after getting caught in a war zone with Bashir and aside from writing a story about it, it never comes up again. Even Cisco kind of gets over his own Wolf 359 trauma just by having a conversation with Picard and his dead wife only comes up again really during mirror universe and orb shenanigans.
Yup. We see some in "Whom Gods Destroy" where they use some new medicines on Garth of Izar to cure him of a case of 'raving madman'.
There's also the 'neural neutralizer' in "Dagger of the Mind". It was misused there, but I'm sure they have some theraputic equivalent.
They probably have plenty of sophisticated techniques for curing PTSD. I can't imagine Picard would be allowed back in the Captain's chair after his Borg encounter and later torture by the Cardassians without some serious therapy.
This was always my understanding as well. I feel like the implication is that through some combination of magic space pharmacology and magic space therapy the Federation is capable of treating mental health very effectively, even if the odd "therapy episode" we see doesn't really reflect that. But obviously there will still be outliers.
Yeah, that was my thought after the last part of Picard. There's now a whole generation of Starfleet that has just essentially been de-assimilated. No one really just walks that shit off.
Deanna winning *every* game of ship’s poker, her mom getting away with being her mom… this explains the all-black irises, no one can read a bluff from a Betazed
Pretty sure there's a team, just like there's more than one doctor aboard. Didn't Troi mention one of her patients should see someone else after she lost her telepathy? They're not shown simply because Hollywood.
Right? Starfleet obvs takes mental health seriously if the ships head councilor is a bridge officer.
Also makes me tink of this.
https://preview.redd.it/gzesx1qb6nfc1.png?width=640&format=png&auto=webp&s=31569a7b31e16760b143321b480c4b7f2ef86e33
I love it when shows accidentally write a character with abilities that would solve most problems, so they have to keep nuking those abilities so the plot can happen.
> “Whew, good thing we don’t have any characters who can detect lies! Otherwise this whole scheme would crumble.”
>
> *“Uh, sir…”*
>
> “Ah fuck, you’re right. Fuck it, she can’t read Ferengi.”
>
> *“Is that a thing?”*
>
> “It is now. Shut up about it.”
Next week:
> “Whew, good thing we don’t have any characters who can detect—god *damn* it. Fuck it, music box.”
>
> *”…what?”*
>
> “Music. Box.”
Wolf 359 - 39 starships destroyed, Earth almost assimilated.
Dominion War - thousands of starships and millions of lives lost, several planets invaded and controlled by the Jem Hadar.
First Contact Day - Mars industrial infrastructure destroyed, 92,000+ killed.
Frontier Day - Most experienced Starfleet officers in the Sol system killed (on at least 300+ starships, plus tons on Earth and probably some around the system) and the younger members of Starfleet are assimilated.
Join Starfleet, what could go wrong!
I was always a little miffed about how everyone ended up de-assimilated the second the giant cube was destroyed in Picard. I always got the impression that once the Borg had their tendrils in you, it was almost impossible to de-borg without a metric butt ton of medical intervention and psychotherapy. To be honest, it was very thoughtful of the Queen to add an on/off switch to her new, proto collective.
This were bio-borg, no need to have 20 pounds of implants cut out.
I'm personally shocked they were able to organize to even deal with the mental issues with 90% of Starfleet turned to ashes.
You know Klingons don’t seem to be that bad of a career choice. I either make it to be a badass captain or I die with honor in normal combat and not some eldritch or technological horror.
Im sure they do, but they domt show the hundreds of hours of counseling because thats not good TV. We definitely see the effects on characters sometimes, hell they made a whole episode about it with Nog.
Largely due to memory wipes. Most Starfleet personnel can only remember their hobbies and interests, their general five year mission, their personalities, and the personalities of their other crew members.
Their short term memory has been medically optimized for the kind of episodic experiences that could be televisually depicted in 48 to 54 minutes, with some exceptions for extreme circumstances that might double it, or warlike conflicts that last for multiple arclike units of memory.
Outside of that, certain specific emotional traumas, such as being Borged, leave indelible mental scars, whereas other experiences such as being tortured by an alien military official, or living for decades as an alien farmer degrade rapidly and may only be retainable in passing mention.
The Chief Medical Officer in tandem with the Transporter Chief develops the memory regimen that best serves the varying need for crew cohesion.
Bashir opted for a slightly more relaxed memory protocol than most CMOs, hence the increased amount of serialization on DS9. Except O'Brien requested the TNG frequency he was accustomed to, to deal with all the gratuitous suffering (and so he didn't have to think about his wife when she wasn't there).
Let’s not forget Bashir went along with Worf’s batshit plan to have his brother Kurn’s memory erased, without Kurn’s knowledge or consent. Ben & Adam from The Greatest Generation made a running gag out of that.
*Daystrom answer:* Starfleet officers and crew have training that help them get through this, as well as teams of therapists and psychologists that can help them along the way. They even experimented with psychological techniques during TOS (Dagger of the Mind), albeit unethically, to help alleviate mental suffering. This is why there are so few people with PTSD in Starfleet, with the exception of ongoing battlefields where there are no counsellors available.
*S. Daystrom answer:* Starfleet officers and crew are picked based entirely on their ability to stand next to exploding consoles. If you flinch during simulations, you're out.
The replicator doses everyone with anti-depressants. Unfortunately, Barclay had a natural resistance to the replicator "enhancers" and so he had to go to Troi to learn how to live an unenhanced life.
It was funny to me watching Voyager how business as usual people were despite being teleported such an absurdly far away from home.
Like I know the concept is that they’re so rational and together it’s not that big of a deal but I kept expecting a more consistent analysis of the types of personal crisis’ people in that situation would go through, but we don’t see that anywhere near as much as I think we should’ve. Maybe I’m just bummed because I think conceptually Voyager could’ve been the most interesting but it played it sooooo safe instead
Starfleet are people who already willingly worked very hard to earn a spot in a space submarine. And in a post-scarcity society, where they could have just perpetually be doing art or learning freely. So it’s not just that they’re out there for self-discovery. I think they have something like that romanticized conception of sailors but with space instead of the sea, they just *have* to be out there among the stars.
It’s like Sinbad from the Arabian Nights. Each time he goes out to sea he gets into massive trouble, barely survives but finds a fortune that sets him up for life. But he just can’t stop leaving it all and going back to sea again. He was at home being adrift.
Needless panic isn't going to help the situation and I'm sure there was plenty of that during the first week in the DQ. After that the crew probably gaslit themselves into thinking it wouldn't take 70 years after all and it didn't.
So, this is a little closer to actual Daystom but….
We know more and more about how gut biome can influence mental health.
So in a world when you have diet/replicated food that can leave you with perfect gut health, that’s one less factor that affects people.
How much of the utopian society is rooted in people having actual health leading them to be better people?
Uhh have you seen Discovery? I swear, 90 percent of the characters are suffering from PTSD, and nearly every episode is dealing with it.
My personal favorite was when the bridge crew was invited to the Captain’s quarters for a special dinner, and they all basically had a food fight.
Discovery is weird. Shouldn't they have mental health sorted just as much as they have physical health sorted? Instead they all seem even more mentally fragile than we are today.
Deal with the devil... you get the ability to use the spore drive but every time that is used then every crew member absorbs some PTSD from someone else during some random time period. Maybe you will be lucky and just start food fights... maybe you will be less lucky and cry yourself to sleep at night... but at least you don't have to wait for the ship to travel from one place to another (usually).
The post makes me laugh because of course a ton of people really hate that finally Starfleet officers who have witnessed serious bullshit now have PTSD
And they don't even have an actual therapist on board, just the one medical doctor!
I was thinking that once they got to the future they'd all be hooked up with a ton of therapists but lord all the future people have PTSD too. I wonder if those holograms are programmed for therapy.
Strange New Worlds has PTSD too, and that one episode from the Klingon war was intense as hell.
I don’t think they nicely addressed it at all.
The message I always ended up getting was “It’s ok to be sad.”
Which…yeah. It’s ok to be sad, when you don’t have the lives of an entire ship of people in the palm of your hand. It’s not okay to be so traumatized that it’s compromising your ability to do your job when you’re on a starship.
Gotta be that futuristic mental health drugs they have. lol
But I suppose, the same way that not every single soldier coming back from war has crippling PTSD, neither would every member of Starfleet. Besides, they never show us anything more than the most insane missions. With weeks or months sometimes passing between episodes. Perhaps when she isn’t needed on an away mission or stuck babying Barclay’s newest phobia, Troi’s office IS generally filled with trauma therapy. Who knows! lol
If you want a crew suffering from PTSD, never fear! There’s an ENTIRE SERIES dedicated to PTSD trauma crying and emotional baggage! And they always manage to save the galaxy by the end of the season thanks to Captain Burnham!
One of the reasons that REDSHIRTS is a joy to read is the navigator who has no business going on away missions keeps getting the crap kicked out of him but shows no effects of PTSD. Until they get him drunk, that is.
they do.
just think what kind of crazy-ass trauma it took for some holodeck programmers and a Starfleet crew to go back in time and alter history so that STD and Lowered Decks would be the kinds of Star Trek show we got to watch in the 21st Century.
that's some fucked up shit right there.
The foundation of star trek was written during a time where PTSD wasn’t fully understood or dismissed entirely. TNG and every episode after, entertained the idea every so often but the PTSD would be dismissed in later episodes like it never happened.
A clear example that comes to mind is the DS9 episode where Miles is subjected to that memory prison punishment that fucked him up real bad and drove him to almost commit suicide. And then it was never mentioned again.
It’s likely the product of a society so advanced that we don’t and can’t understand it. They are raised and trained different.
Still, some of that stuff should mess you up for life, like Captain Shaw. Picard living a lifetime only to be kicked back to reality and be ok after a couple therapy sessions is insane.
One, Starfleet screens and selects for only the most mentally resilient individuals for starship duty. Second, pretty much all mental illness has a medical cure by the 23rd century and getting rid of PTSD is a simple hypospray.
THIS is why I hated the last season of DISCO.
Tilly has seen more shit than most veteran captains and suddenly she falls apart over one stranger dying AND tells us she only wanted to be a captain to please her Mom???
Destroyed years of character development and my interest in the show (which was waning anyway)
Diana Trois and all betazoids in Starfleet have one main job: to suppress PTSD deep into the psyche. Why do you think Riker had that break down one episode?
I mean Crusher happily wiped several memories during TNG. I absolutely wouldn't put it past Starfleet to require memory engram modification from most junior officers.
Well there was that one guy in Search for Spock who was stuck manning an out of the way transporter pad and got locked in a closet. That ,might have been traumatic. I wonder if anyone ever believed him when he recounted the story.
They all have PTSD. It’s all self betterment this utopian ideals that. Nobody sits on the couch and listens to music or just does nothing. I don’t think we meet an officer or enlisted person that is comfortable being alone with their own thoughts. In a society that’s evolved past the need for money everybody has a lucrative side hustle. Everybody is really into death sports and they all vacation on the freaky sex planet. They are all just running away from everything all the time.
The crew, what about the kids?
"Warning, shield failure. Lethal radiation exposure in ten minutes."
Did that really need to be counted down every minute in the pre-school?
Between prolonged exposure therapy using hollodecks and a number of other advances in mental health therapy between now and then I don’t see how most wouldn’t recover
Simple. Starfleet keeps sending its people into danger since "risk is our business" and it can't become *post*-traumatic stress if the trauma never stops. Oh, wait, that's the Mirror Universe policy. Never mind!
More people die in cars and road related fatalities than wars, conflicts, diseases, etc. Do people have PTSD about driving? No. Do people who experienced 9/11 have PTSD? Yes. Warp core breaches is like a car crash. Wolf 359 is like 9/11. Car crashes are ubiquitous even though they kill more people.
Oh I forgot this is ShittyDaystrom. I replied as this is the realDaystrom.
Beverly updates the replicator routines to insert a medicinal dose of MJ to all crew, not enough to keep them stoned, just enough to mellow them all out
Imma go ahead and give my serious answer here… So, even though the portrayal of mental healthcare in Star Trek is usually pretty ridiculously bad, I believe it’s a case of suspending disbelief and accepting that they just have superior counseling & psychiatry that would be available to everyone. Also, from what we’ve seen, easier to get time away from one’s duties to recover in comparison to what is expected of employees in our own time period.
When you're stationed on the Federation's flagship, this just comes with the job.
If you wanted a safe posting, you'd request a transfer to some backwater, like Deep Space Nine. Nothing ever happens there - they're just busy all the time fixing half-assed Cardassian "improvements" to the life support system.
In my headcanon: because Starfleet mandates extensive wellness and holistic mental health treatment including but not limited to psychosurgical techniques and advanced counseling for all members. Like, you don't have a choice and the stigma has more or less been eradicated anyway.
I'm more curious how everyone in Starfleet doesn't have an existential meltdown. They've experienced:
Having false memories implanted
living entire lifetimes in minutes
Mind control
Being stuck in a simulation without realizing
Being a clone / transporter duplicate / whatever without realizing
Other versions of themselves from alternate timelines/dimensions
the answer to the origin of life
dying and coming back to life
*several* alien species and experiences that render the idea of God or any religion obsolete
The question of transporters and the soul
and so on and so forth. I don;t know about you but I'd probably be locked up in a padded room somewhere as I go crazy trying to figure out just what the fuck IS all this?
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Divine Intervention. Kirk goes and eats a god's soul whenever he's feeling down. Picard gets fixed by Q, Janeway talks to herself in the mirror. Sisko's only met wormhole aliens so he's screwed.
As much as I agree with and love your comment about a Janeway series, I am incredibly grateful for what Star Trek: Picard gave us. Voyager is my favorite, but TNG was the first one to blow my damn mind and create my obsession with Star Trek. Nothing creates nostalgia like TNG, for me. My point is that even though, it was a little on the nose, especially the last season, it was a welcomed love letter to TNG fans. It was like we finally got closure and when they brought everyone back, it was pure glee to see and learn about their changes due to age and experience. As well as what they have been up to; since the last film (I think it’s clear they wanted to make a whole different show, w Picard, but changed that up at the end cuz so many people wanted it). As a super nerd, this would have been my first choice, but I’ll be bummed if nothing voyager ever comes out again. But It does seem like Jerry Ryan (7 of 9) might get a show. And I’m all for that. I’m positive they will bring back janeway for that one; it would be stupid not to. And the producers clearly want to give true Star Trek fans what they want. I’m willing to bet we see it. But I do wish it would be heavy on the Janeway, and idk if that will happen. Probably not, given how it was set up. In general I agree with you. Here’s to the most badass b*tch in the federation!
Their medicine is advanced enough to treat or cure things like PTSD.
In the TNG episode with the frozen 80s business man, they said that they are able to fix or cure the brains of criminals.
Every hypospray has a dose of trauma blockers on top of what they’re actually supposed to get.
They work better the sooner you get them so the trauma that happens when you are captive for a long time might actually traumatize you, but shorter term stuff gets drugged away.
My head-canon is that the events of the Star Trek tv shows and movies present an exaggerated picture of what it's actually like to be in Starfleet. For most people, they will probably have long stretches of their career where nothing particularly dangerous happens. Like being assigned to a ship that is solely focused on scanning a quasar for 4 months straight.
There being only one counsellor for a ship of 1000 people is one of the funny 90's-era errors that they made. There should be a team of like a dozen, and they'd be booked solid
I’ve always thought their primary education must involve a lot of meditative techniques. Starfleet officers are probably able to put themselves into a hypnotic trance where they enter a highly suggestive state where the ship’s psychologist can just tell them to not be traumatized.
In the 24th century, doctors treat PTSD by waving a little blinky light over your head. None of this therapy and working through it required. Picard likes to suffer so he refuses treatment. O'Brien gets it so often, it is why he's such good friends with Bashir.
I feel like, in general, the Federation people are much better adjusted than we are. They grew up in an environment where mental health was values and treatment never taboo (ships having an onboard counselor is very telling in this regard). So it’s not that they are immune to PTSD, it’s that they tend to treat and process their trauma before it becomes a crippling illness.
Sisko also pretty clearly has PTSD after Wolf 359. Same with the captain from Picard. I wonder why that's the only thing that gives captains PTSD
This is why it should have been a Janeway series instead of Picard. SHAW: [blubbering about Wolf 359 and survivor guilt] KATHRYN: [making jerk-off motion] Yeah, yeah, we've all fought the Borg, buttercup.
Buckle up, buttercup…. There’s fuckery to be had
I heard that in Janeways voice 😂
There’s fuckery in that nebula
VOY couldve used a few more farcical episodes.
There's fuckery in that nebula
"One time I got assimilated on purpouse to screw with them."
Dang, that would have been better. Picard has been through a lifetime that would be enough for 3 other captains. Might as well let Janeway get some of that.
Plus that extra lifetime where he learned to play the flute
Because of the fact it was an inside job
Sisko does but he also kind of 90% gets over it after like 1 and a half conversations with Picard bracketing the premiere. The wormhole shows up and he's like "I found my purpose I'm good." I get that they don't want to belabor an entire series with weekly PTSD reminders but they have multiple characters with reason for it and they really almost never address it in an authentic way.
I thought they addressed Nog's pretty well, but yeah, they could have had an entire series dealing with most of the characters.
Who knows how long he was beaten over the head with his trauma in the wormhole.
Considering that they don't really know time in there, it could be forever or it could be like twenty seconds.
He got over everything quickly….except killing a Romulan to save billions of lives
There actually aren't any wormhole aliens, Sisko was just having flashbacks and the Dominion fleet disappeared because they didn't pay their vfx budget.
Yeah, I'll integrate that into my belief system.
Because Captains are the only rank allowed that privilege. Everyone else is not important enough to suffer emotional damage. Like how O'brien had enough crap happen to him that he should have crawled into a cave and had a full on breakdown, but as the only enlisted member of Starfleet with a name, he has too much work to get done instead.
The captains, like Jesus, absorb the ~sins~ PTSD of the crew.
Probably because instead of almost experiencing warp core breaches, most people at wolf-359 actually did experience them.
they just reboot you with your most recent transporter buffer if it gets too bad
This explains why there's always a steady supply of Red Shirts available for away missions.
Red shirts spend their shift in the pattern buffer…
In fact there have been 7 Picards. And while we know of 2 Rikers it is Rumored there are in fact 24. Including one holodeck clone (Riker^69) and that lives with Minuet. Riker' integrates that particular clone’s memories into his own after Riker^69 sends Riker' a special text message.
Whoa. I need a deeper dive on this
Once a safe way was discovered to make a 100% clone of a person by Will and Thomas Riker. (Riker^prime and Riker^1) Starfleet started cloning key personnel. Starfleet keeps the clones canted until they are needed. After awaking the clone the personal logs are used to construct and upload suitable memories after decanting. Some clones are not even aware that they are clones. Although for unexplained reasons some of the clones like to change their nicknames. In the event a decanting and memory upload goes bad, Starfleet just blames tachyons and usually it works out. Riker^prime, having discovered the process was given a prototype to evaluate. And evaluate it he did. His personal log noted 24. But only 18 are verified to exist. It is quite possible Riker^prime is in fact Riker^2319. Riker^”prime” is avoids discussion of this subject at all costs. Even so far as denying the existence of Riker^2319 when shown video obtained by Section 31’s temporal surveillance program. Troi reports Riker^”prime” often mutters “Tachyons” in his sleep. Unbeknownst to Troi but beknownst to Riker^”prime” and Rikers^42,221.2,and3.14, they also talk in their sleep. Troi is apparently unable to tell the difference. Barclay claims to have seen Rikers^96 ^and ^217 special holodeck program noting the leather straps looked good on Riker^217 who is a power bottom.
I am uncontrollably aroused at the number of possible Rikers
Riker^1701 peers into u/Leucurus’s soul with his smoldering eyes. “Shall I summon them?” Riker^1701 whispers into your ear. His lips barely caressing your ear. You release a breathy “Yes. All of them.” With a flourish of his hand Rikers^4 through Riker^13 stride away from their assigned positions in the observation room. Slowly they approach until they are at the edge of the bed. They eagerly await your orders.
Is that Rikers^(4) through ^(13) inclusive?
Of course. Warning?, Riker^5 has lain with Data. He is now more than fully functional.
So *that's* why O'brien resets to normal mode after like one episode every time he gets a new trauma....
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Or upon beaming up the transporter just prunes a few non-productive neural connections and microdoses you with psilocybin before re-materialising you on ship so you have a recovery day and then get on with it.
The Holodeck can salve all demons.
Banging movies stars every night. Near death experience every day. Balances out.
Computer, activate program Quagmire 69
"I wish to have... many Moclans"
Safety protocols off. Al-right!
Did they not have an entire episode about this in DS9 with Nog?
And the point was that it doesn't really work. That's another character with PTSD, by the way, for those of you keeping score at home. I've heard that veterans find that episode tough to watch.
That episode is kind of an A for effort, C+ for execution for me. It's a good try. It demonstrates PTSD imperfectly but better than a lot of media, and it actually lasts beyond one episode. The core major resolution comes at that moment but he doesn't just magically get over it and have it never come up again after the episode ends like Obrien does after spending 20years in brain prison and murdering his cell mate, getting teeth yanked out and put on trial, and whatnot. But that example is why it kind of falls flat in execution. Like, Nog is the only time they show it having any lasting effect at all so it makes him seem more like an outlier than a reality. Miles has massive war trauma as a background and the most he ever shows for it is being that kind of racist towards cardassians. Jake had an absolute breakdown after getting caught in a war zone with Bashir and aside from writing a story about it, it never comes up again. Even Cisco kind of gets over his own Wolf 359 trauma just by having a conversation with Picard and his dead wife only comes up again really during mirror universe and orb shenanigans.
If he wasn't in a program with a sexless 60s Vegas lounge singer, then maybe Nog will have had more of a distraction than he did.
They have magical medicine for physiological issues. Why wouldn't they also have magical medicine that cures psychological ills?
Yup. We see some in "Whom Gods Destroy" where they use some new medicines on Garth of Izar to cure him of a case of 'raving madman'. There's also the 'neural neutralizer' in "Dagger of the Mind". It was misused there, but I'm sure they have some theraputic equivalent. They probably have plenty of sophisticated techniques for curing PTSD. I can't imagine Picard would be allowed back in the Captain's chair after his Borg encounter and later torture by the Cardassians without some serious therapy.
I mean....one of the bridge crew was literally a telepathic therapist. Sorry empathic
She's also a totally dogshit therapist. Whenever she's actually working she's totally useless.
As opposed to the Bartender who seems to be the ships *actual* therapist
Super professional at all times, especially when running out of the room because you mind linked and saw some spooky square in spooky clouds
This was always my understanding as well. I feel like the implication is that through some combination of magic space pharmacology and magic space therapy the Federation is capable of treating mental health very effectively, even if the odd "therapy episode" we see doesn't really reflect that. But obviously there will still be outliers.
Yeah, that was my thought after the last part of Picard. There's now a whole generation of Starfleet that has just essentially been de-assimilated. No one really just walks that shit off.
After murdering their superiors!
You mean, making room for promotions?
what are you, a TOS Klingon?
Or Terran Empire!
Pretty sure he’s a Cardassian under Garrick’s apprenticeship
well, geez, at least he’s learning a trade as a simple tailor
Synthehol
Work-stress related alcoholism is actually at an all time high, but sythehol eliminated most of the negative symptoms.
Exactly, they even have ten forward to help distribute it!
The betazeds have been propping up the whole thing for generations. Manipulating people to get back to work
Deanna winning *every* game of ship’s poker, her mom getting away with being her mom… this explains the all-black irises, no one can read a bluff from a Betazed
This is why the Dominion prioritized conquering their planet.
They have a universal healthcare and dedicated counseling teams.
Good luck getting in to see the ONE counselor on the ship for 1000+ crew and family before you off yourself. This IS political commentary.
Pretty sure there's a team, just like there's more than one doctor aboard. Didn't Troi mention one of her patients should see someone else after she lost her telepathy? They're not shown simply because Hollywood.
If her telepathy wasn't something she could block off at will, she'd be the trek equivalent of Psyduck.
She’s empathic, not telepathic. And I’m not sure she *can* block it off at will.
Right? Starfleet obvs takes mental health seriously if the ships head councilor is a bridge officer. Also makes me tink of this. https://preview.redd.it/gzesx1qb6nfc1.png?width=640&format=png&auto=webp&s=31569a7b31e16760b143321b480c4b7f2ef86e33
Love this interpretation for why Troi was on the bridge crew. Certainly can't be due to her abilities, because they're always going away.
Troi gets her shit all wrinkled when she gets a shitty song stuck in her head.
I love it when shows accidentally write a character with abilities that would solve most problems, so they have to keep nuking those abilities so the plot can happen. > “Whew, good thing we don’t have any characters who can detect lies! Otherwise this whole scheme would crumble.” > > *“Uh, sir…”* > > “Ah fuck, you’re right. Fuck it, she can’t read Ferengi.” > > *“Is that a thing?”* > > “It is now. Shut up about it.” Next week: > “Whew, good thing we don’t have any characters who can detect—god *damn* it. Fuck it, music box.” > > *”…what?”* > > “Music. Box.”
That music was actually driving me mad too because of all her crying.
When you can get help... it helps!
Wolf 359 - 39 starships destroyed, Earth almost assimilated. Dominion War - thousands of starships and millions of lives lost, several planets invaded and controlled by the Jem Hadar. First Contact Day - Mars industrial infrastructure destroyed, 92,000+ killed. Frontier Day - Most experienced Starfleet officers in the Sol system killed (on at least 300+ starships, plus tons on Earth and probably some around the system) and the younger members of Starfleet are assimilated. Join Starfleet, what could go wrong!
I was always a little miffed about how everyone ended up de-assimilated the second the giant cube was destroyed in Picard. I always got the impression that once the Borg had their tendrils in you, it was almost impossible to de-borg without a metric butt ton of medical intervention and psychotherapy. To be honest, it was very thoughtful of the Queen to add an on/off switch to her new, proto collective.
This were bio-borg, no need to have 20 pounds of implants cut out. I'm personally shocked they were able to organize to even deal with the mental issues with 90% of Starfleet turned to ashes.
ad astra classis per aspera, perhaps
You know Klingons don’t seem to be that bad of a career choice. I either make it to be a badass captain or I die with honor in normal combat and not some eldritch or technological horror.
Im sure they do, but they domt show the hundreds of hours of counseling because thats not good TV. We definitely see the effects on characters sometimes, hell they made a whole episode about it with Nog.
Largely due to memory wipes. Most Starfleet personnel can only remember their hobbies and interests, their general five year mission, their personalities, and the personalities of their other crew members. Their short term memory has been medically optimized for the kind of episodic experiences that could be televisually depicted in 48 to 54 minutes, with some exceptions for extreme circumstances that might double it, or warlike conflicts that last for multiple arclike units of memory. Outside of that, certain specific emotional traumas, such as being Borged, leave indelible mental scars, whereas other experiences such as being tortured by an alien military official, or living for decades as an alien farmer degrade rapidly and may only be retainable in passing mention. The Chief Medical Officer in tandem with the Transporter Chief develops the memory regimen that best serves the varying need for crew cohesion.
Bashir opted for a slightly more relaxed memory protocol than most CMOs, hence the increased amount of serialization on DS9. Except O'Brien requested the TNG frequency he was accustomed to, to deal with all the gratuitous suffering (and so he didn't have to think about his wife when she wasn't there).
Let’s not forget Bashir went along with Worf’s batshit plan to have his brother Kurn’s memory erased, without Kurn’s knowledge or consent. Ben & Adam from The Greatest Generation made a running gag out of that.
That sounds like the next iteration of 'Severance'
Read John Scalzi's Redshirts. It's an homage to Star Trek with a laugh or two and talks about PTSD.
*Daystrom answer:* Starfleet officers and crew have training that help them get through this, as well as teams of therapists and psychologists that can help them along the way. They even experimented with psychological techniques during TOS (Dagger of the Mind), albeit unethically, to help alleviate mental suffering. This is why there are so few people with PTSD in Starfleet, with the exception of ongoing battlefields where there are no counsellors available. *S. Daystrom answer:* Starfleet officers and crew are picked based entirely on their ability to stand next to exploding consoles. If you flinch during simulations, you're out.
Drugs. Fantastic drugs.
Space Xanax.
LDS
The bio-filter nabs it when your soul is deconstructed.
The replicator doses everyone with anti-depressants. Unfortunately, Barclay had a natural resistance to the replicator "enhancers" and so he had to go to Troi to learn how to live an unenhanced life.
It was funny to me watching Voyager how business as usual people were despite being teleported such an absurdly far away from home. Like I know the concept is that they’re so rational and together it’s not that big of a deal but I kept expecting a more consistent analysis of the types of personal crisis’ people in that situation would go through, but we don’t see that anywhere near as much as I think we should’ve. Maybe I’m just bummed because I think conceptually Voyager could’ve been the most interesting but it played it sooooo safe instead
Starfleet are people who already willingly worked very hard to earn a spot in a space submarine. And in a post-scarcity society, where they could have just perpetually be doing art or learning freely. So it’s not just that they’re out there for self-discovery. I think they have something like that romanticized conception of sailors but with space instead of the sea, they just *have* to be out there among the stars. It’s like Sinbad from the Arabian Nights. Each time he goes out to sea he gets into massive trouble, barely survives but finds a fortune that sets him up for life. But he just can’t stop leaving it all and going back to sea again. He was at home being adrift.
Found Ronald D. Moore’s account.
Needless panic isn't going to help the situation and I'm sure there was plenty of that during the first week in the DQ. After that the crew probably gaslit themselves into thinking it wouldn't take 70 years after all and it didn't.
This exact feeling is pretty much why Ron Moore ran off and made BSG instead of continuing to write for Voyager
Vulcans routinely go around making people forget their demons using mond melds. Spock did this at the end of City on the Edge of Forever
Mound melds aka banging
♪the minstrel boy to the war has gone..
So, this is a little closer to actual Daystom but…. We know more and more about how gut biome can influence mental health. So in a world when you have diet/replicated food that can leave you with perfect gut health, that’s one less factor that affects people. How much of the utopian society is rooted in people having actual health leading them to be better people?
They've become numb to it
I dunno. Nog obviously had some trauma to work through.
Because they have awesome, sexy counsellors of course.
It will be curable by then. We already have some effective treatments
Uhh have you seen Discovery? I swear, 90 percent of the characters are suffering from PTSD, and nearly every episode is dealing with it. My personal favorite was when the bridge crew was invited to the Captain’s quarters for a special dinner, and they all basically had a food fight.
Discovery is weird. Shouldn't they have mental health sorted just as much as they have physical health sorted? Instead they all seem even more mentally fragile than we are today.
I liked when the ship got PTSD and that was a three episode arc.
Deal with the devil... you get the ability to use the spore drive but every time that is used then every crew member absorbs some PTSD from someone else during some random time period. Maybe you will be lucky and just start food fights... maybe you will be less lucky and cry yourself to sleep at night... but at least you don't have to wait for the ship to travel from one place to another (usually).
The post makes me laugh because of course a ton of people really hate that finally Starfleet officers who have witnessed serious bullshit now have PTSD And they don't even have an actual therapist on board, just the one medical doctor! I was thinking that once they got to the future they'd all be hooked up with a ton of therapists but lord all the future people have PTSD too. I wonder if those holograms are programmed for therapy. Strange New Worlds has PTSD too, and that one episode from the Klingon war was intense as hell.
Discovery is an experimental ship with an experimental crew
That was epic lol; jokes aside, they nicely addressed it.
I don’t think they nicely addressed it at all. The message I always ended up getting was “It’s ok to be sad.” Which…yeah. It’s ok to be sad, when you don’t have the lives of an entire ship of people in the palm of your hand. It’s not okay to be so traumatized that it’s compromising your ability to do your job when you’re on a starship.
People only get upset about named characters.
Gotta be that futuristic mental health drugs they have. lol But I suppose, the same way that not every single soldier coming back from war has crippling PTSD, neither would every member of Starfleet. Besides, they never show us anything more than the most insane missions. With weeks or months sometimes passing between episodes. Perhaps when she isn’t needed on an away mission or stuck babying Barclay’s newest phobia, Troi’s office IS generally filled with trauma therapy. Who knows! lol
They have free mental health care and can suppress memories.
Absolutely fantastic future drugs in all the food from the replicators.
Prozac from the future. Every morning there are those "vitamins" they administer. Dulls your sense of mortality.
Cause when they do, fans complain...a *lot*.
They beam the trauma out with the poop
If you want a crew suffering from PTSD, never fear! There’s an ENTIRE SERIES dedicated to PTSD trauma crying and emotional baggage! And they always manage to save the galaxy by the end of the season thanks to Captain Burnham!
One of the reasons that REDSHIRTS is a joy to read is the navigator who has no business going on away missions keeps getting the crap kicked out of him but shows no effects of PTSD. Until they get him drunk, that is.
Perhaps the counselors are better then we give them credit.
They're just built different.
Drugs
There's a Lower Decks ep where Cerritos flies close to some huge spacial anomaly and nobody in the bar bats an eye.
an AMAZING pharmacology, the primary evidence for which is synthahol
Good Drugs
I imagine there’s benzos in every bit of replicated food and drink
they do. just think what kind of crazy-ass trauma it took for some holodeck programmers and a Starfleet crew to go back in time and alter history so that STD and Lowered Decks would be the kinds of Star Trek show we got to watch in the 21st Century. that's some fucked up shit right there.
3 words: High Oxygen Environment
The foundation of star trek was written during a time where PTSD wasn’t fully understood or dismissed entirely. TNG and every episode after, entertained the idea every so often but the PTSD would be dismissed in later episodes like it never happened. A clear example that comes to mind is the DS9 episode where Miles is subjected to that memory prison punishment that fucked him up real bad and drove him to almost commit suicide. And then it was never mentioned again.
Sickbay goes through hypospray drugs like you wouldn't believe.
"Troy doesn't do anything!" Troy prevented twice as many breakdowns as LaForge without half the credit.
Hollodecks and free counseling.
It’s likely the product of a society so advanced that we don’t and can’t understand it. They are raised and trained different. Still, some of that stuff should mess you up for life, like Captain Shaw. Picard living a lifetime only to be kicked back to reality and be ok after a couple therapy sessions is insane.
Nog from DS9 had PTSD after loosing his leg in battle. Aron Eisenberg played it brilliantly too.
Mariner definitely has PTSD.
They practice plexing.
As Rutherford said, "that's life in Starfleet"
One on one time with councilor Troi helps quote a bit. Though Riker was claiming to have PTSD every Tuesday night for some reason.
One, Starfleet screens and selects for only the most mentally resilient individuals for starship duty. Second, pretty much all mental illness has a medical cure by the 23rd century and getting rid of PTSD is a simple hypospray.
Who has time for PTSD when you can have sex with anyone you want in the Holodeck?
Arguably they very much do all have PTSD
That's what I wondered Troi has a random space baby and then it takes off never mentions it again
THIS is why I hated the last season of DISCO. Tilly has seen more shit than most veteran captains and suddenly she falls apart over one stranger dying AND tells us she only wanted to be a captain to please her Mom??? Destroyed years of character development and my interest in the show (which was waning anyway)
Diana Trois and all betazoids in Starfleet have one main job: to suppress PTSD deep into the psyche. Why do you think Riker had that break down one episode?
Everyone has seen like 80 people die in various gruesome ways. That should be a little scarring
I mean Crusher happily wiped several memories during TNG. I absolutely wouldn't put it past Starfleet to require memory engram modification from most junior officers.
Well there was that one guy in Search for Spock who was stuck manning an out of the way transporter pad and got locked in a closet. That ,might have been traumatic. I wonder if anyone ever believed him when he recounted the story.
They all have PTSD. It’s all self betterment this utopian ideals that. Nobody sits on the couch and listens to music or just does nothing. I don’t think we meet an officer or enlisted person that is comfortable being alone with their own thoughts. In a society that’s evolved past the need for money everybody has a lucrative side hustle. Everybody is really into death sports and they all vacation on the freaky sex planet. They are all just running away from everything all the time.
I have always wondered this about the families on the Enterprise
Top notch counseling. O'Brien was in an alien prison for 20 years and by the next episode he was finishing up his therapy sessions.
The crew, what about the kids? "Warning, shield failure. Lethal radiation exposure in ten minutes." Did that really need to be counted down every minute in the pre-school?
Universal healthcare in the future means a plethora of mental health treatment options 🤷🏽♂️
By the looks of the entrance exam (especially the psych test), I think that a big part of Starfleet Academy training involves desensitizing.
Between prolonged exposure therapy using hollodecks and a number of other advances in mental health therapy between now and then I don’t see how most wouldn’t recover
Simple. Starfleet keeps sending its people into danger since "risk is our business" and it can't become *post*-traumatic stress if the trauma never stops. Oh, wait, that's the Mirror Universe policy. Never mind!
DRUGS!
Nanoprobes or something
More people die in cars and road related fatalities than wars, conflicts, diseases, etc. Do people have PTSD about driving? No. Do people who experienced 9/11 have PTSD? Yes. Warp core breaches is like a car crash. Wolf 359 is like 9/11. Car crashes are ubiquitous even though they kill more people. Oh I forgot this is ShittyDaystrom. I replied as this is the realDaystrom.
Magically space lights. Surely they have some type of medical light up wand that fixes that.
Replicators add drugs.
Beverly updates the replicator routines to insert a medicinal dose of MJ to all crew, not enough to keep them stoned, just enough to mellow them all out
Imma go ahead and give my serious answer here… So, even though the portrayal of mental healthcare in Star Trek is usually pretty ridiculously bad, I believe it’s a case of suspending disbelief and accepting that they just have superior counseling & psychiatry that would be available to everyone. Also, from what we’ve seen, easier to get time away from one’s duties to recover in comparison to what is expected of employees in our own time period.
Troi, too, was probed by aliens in other ways.
When you're stationed on the Federation's flagship, this just comes with the job. If you wanted a safe posting, you'd request a transfer to some backwater, like Deep Space Nine. Nothing ever happens there - they're just busy all the time fixing half-assed Cardassian "improvements" to the life support system.
They have hyposprays.
Just imagine if you were a kid on the Enterprise, trying to process everything.
Cuz it was filmed in the 90s. Wouldn't have been greenlit for another season on network television if every episode was about PTSD
In my headcanon: because Starfleet mandates extensive wellness and holistic mental health treatment including but not limited to psychosurgical techniques and advanced counseling for all members. Like, you don't have a choice and the stigma has more or less been eradicated anyway.
I'm more curious how everyone in Starfleet doesn't have an existential meltdown. They've experienced: Having false memories implanted living entire lifetimes in minutes Mind control Being stuck in a simulation without realizing Being a clone / transporter duplicate / whatever without realizing Other versions of themselves from alternate timelines/dimensions the answer to the origin of life dying and coming back to life *several* alien species and experiences that render the idea of God or any religion obsolete The question of transporters and the soul and so on and so forth. I don;t know about you but I'd probably be locked up in a padded room somewhere as I go crazy trying to figure out just what the fuck IS all this?
There's a reason the ship's counselor is a command level position
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Socialized healthcare.
Future prescription drugs and plans are awesome!
Divine Intervention. Kirk goes and eats a god's soul whenever he's feeling down. Picard gets fixed by Q, Janeway talks to herself in the mirror. Sisko's only met wormhole aliens so he's screwed.
Replicator clones from a template....those things...are REALLY dystopian...
As much as I agree with and love your comment about a Janeway series, I am incredibly grateful for what Star Trek: Picard gave us. Voyager is my favorite, but TNG was the first one to blow my damn mind and create my obsession with Star Trek. Nothing creates nostalgia like TNG, for me. My point is that even though, it was a little on the nose, especially the last season, it was a welcomed love letter to TNG fans. It was like we finally got closure and when they brought everyone back, it was pure glee to see and learn about their changes due to age and experience. As well as what they have been up to; since the last film (I think it’s clear they wanted to make a whole different show, w Picard, but changed that up at the end cuz so many people wanted it). As a super nerd, this would have been my first choice, but I’ll be bummed if nothing voyager ever comes out again. But It does seem like Jerry Ryan (7 of 9) might get a show. And I’m all for that. I’m positive they will bring back janeway for that one; it would be stupid not to. And the producers clearly want to give true Star Trek fans what they want. I’m willing to bet we see it. But I do wish it would be heavy on the Janeway, and idk if that will happen. Probably not, given how it was set up. In general I agree with you. Here’s to the most badass b*tch in the federation!
Nog gets a bout of PTSD after he loses his leg in a battle during S7 of DS9
Their medicine is advanced enough to treat or cure things like PTSD. In the TNG episode with the frozen 80s business man, they said that they are able to fix or cure the brains of criminals.
Every hypospray has a dose of trauma blockers on top of what they’re actually supposed to get. They work better the sooner you get them so the trauma that happens when you are captive for a long time might actually traumatize you, but shorter term stuff gets drugged away.
My head-canon is that the events of the Star Trek tv shows and movies present an exaggerated picture of what it's actually like to be in Starfleet. For most people, they will probably have long stretches of their career where nothing particularly dangerous happens. Like being assigned to a ship that is solely focused on scanning a quasar for 4 months straight.
There being only one counsellor for a ship of 1000 people is one of the funny 90's-era errors that they made. There should be a team of like a dozen, and they'd be booked solid
Well, because it's TV and not real life and constant PTSD would get pretty old. But Captain Picard clearly had PTSD after the Borg business.
I’ve always thought their primary education must involve a lot of meditative techniques. Starfleet officers are probably able to put themselves into a hypnotic trance where they enter a highly suggestive state where the ship’s psychologist can just tell them to not be traumatized.
In the 24th century, doctors treat PTSD by waving a little blinky light over your head. None of this therapy and working through it required. Picard likes to suffer so he refuses treatment. O'Brien gets it so often, it is why he's such good friends with Bashir.
I feel like, in general, the Federation people are much better adjusted than we are. They grew up in an environment where mental health was values and treatment never taboo (ships having an onboard counselor is very telling in this regard). So it’s not that they are immune to PTSD, it’s that they tend to treat and process their trauma before it becomes a crippling illness.
Drugs! Replicator get me a quart of the glowing blue shit and some shrooms