Analysis 3, Psychoanalysis

Psycho Planet

In this episode of Star Trek “Return of the Archons,” the crew of the Enterprise discovers a society that is forcefully manipulated into a psychologically compartmentalized existence that fits into Sigmund Freud’s three delineated manifestations of the theory of the mind. By day the citizens appear to be completely under the influence of the ego, which Freud describes in The Ego and the Id as that “which seeks to bring the influence of the external world to bear upon the id” (Freud 19) The citizens are complacent, happy, controlled by “what may be called reason and common sense” (Freud 19) . At 6:00 pm however, the festival red hour begins, and for twelve hours these same citizens turn violent and libidinous, completely descending into the id as Freud describes it in his New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, “we call it a chaos, a cauldron full of seething excitations... It is filled with energy reaching it from the instincts… striving to bring about the satisfaction of the instinctual needs subject to the observance of the pleasure principle” (Freud 498, 499) . In control of this pendulum swing is the god-like Landru, the lawgiver.
It turns out Landru is a computer who claims that before it took over, the planet was plagued with war, hate, unhappiness, uncertainty, and crime. In other words, like our normal human existence. Landru’s daytime controlled society is happy and peaceful, with none of the “ancient evils.” But, Landru realized the necessity for instituting a specific regulated escape valve for the id. Real life human existence is a continual struggle of balancing the id. The “ego in its relation to the id is like a man on horseback, who has to hold in check the superior strength of the horse” (Freud 19).
As the “lawgiver” in control of these psychological states, god-like Landru has set himself up as a figure who must be obeyed. In this way he fits into Freud’s role of “the super-ego [who] retains the character of the father” (Freud 30) .

Works Cited

Freud, Sigmund. The Ego and the Id. New York: W.W. Norton, 1960. 19-30. Print.

Freud, Sigmund. New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. The Essentials of Psychoanalysis. Ed. Anna Freud. New York: Penguin, 1986. 498-499. Print.