Maggie’s talk is called “Healing Science Fiction: Hillman’s Revisioned Psychology as seen through the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode ‘Darmok'”
Carl G. Jung uses myth to expand upon his depth psychological teachings about how to heal one’s psyche, or soul, by becoming more whole through individuation, an ongoing process of acknowledging, accepting, and integrating different aspects of our unconscious with our conscious ego. James Hillman expands upon Jung’s use of myth by introducing four moves he believes one’s psyche goes through to heal itself, in his concept of Re-Visioning Psychology: personifying, pathologizing, psychologizing, and dehumanizing or soul-making. This presentation will use the episode “Darmok” from Star Trek: The Next Generation to illustrate Hillman’s thesis. In this episode, Captain Jean-Luc Picard is stranded on a planet with the captain of an alien ship–from a race that communicates only through metaphor and uses each of Hillman’s four moves in order to save his own life and that of the crew of the Enterprise.
About Maggie
Margaret (Maggie) Mendenhall, PhD, currently resides in Long Beach, California and is a graduate of Pacifica Graduate Institute’s Mythological Studies Program. She is also currently a student in Pacifica’s Depth Psychology Program, specializing in Jungian and Archetypal Studies. Margaret has presented papers on Star Trek related topics at various conferences, including last year’s Mythologium, the Science Fictions, Popular Culture Academic Conference, the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology, Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association, Mythgard Institute and the American Academy of Religion, Western Regional Conference. She writes a blog, My Daily Soul Trek analyzing each Star Trek episode and film from the beginning in chronological order through a depth psychological perspective. As an edutainer, she has written, performed and produced two myth based one-woman shows: Dancing to the Edge of a Cliff: A Mythical Journey Toward Wholeness and Soul Trek: My Sci-Fi Journey Toward Wholeness, and produced and hosted the public access television series Myth Is All Around Us. Margaret has also been published in legal journals and Pacifica’s Mythological Studies Journal (online) and the Between literary review.
To hear Maggie’s talk and many others, join us at the Mythologium!
The Mythologium is a conference and retreat for mythologists and friends of myth, held July 30 – Aug 1 via Zoom. Register here!