Spoilers Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1x08 – “The Life of the Stars”

[firehawk12]

There's also Person Centered Therapy which is also very person centered.

There is Existential therapists who deal with philosophy and topics of meaning through a therapeutic lens.

There's so many different schools of therapeutic thought to support processing trauma, and managing symptoms, with a larger driving force behind many being that the therapist is not the expert on the client's experience but models healthy coping.

CBT is great but it is hardly the only way. The mocking attitude towards therapy in this thread is astounding to me.

I think the issue is how it's presented in the episode as a class they're forced to take. Would a therapist use the authority of a teacher to tell her patients that she doesn't care if they don't appreciate her methods, she'll do it anyway? Or lecture her patients if they tell her that they don't think the therapy is working?

Imagine someone losing a loved one and then their boss tells them they have to take a mandatory theatre class in order to keep their job instead of just telling them to find a therapist or psychologist... because the theatre class is secretly a counselling session in disguise.

 

[valkyrie013]

@fireproof78
Not mocking, just saying that the Scooby gang's "Therapy didn't do much, it mainly focused on Tarima when she got back and got shuffled to the academy side. people looking at her weirdly, and her thing on not being "Normal"
The rest of the gang.. didn't do much in the way of therapy. just was background noise.

 

[Mr Awe]

I expected to, but this episode was an absolute nightmare mishmash of some of the worst impulses on new trek. It talks about mental health like a subreddit would and it makes for terrible television, AND terrible depictions of trauma response. Why the hell isn't the academy using, I don't know, an actual therapist to treat these students? Instead, they bring in Tilly, whose qualifications for this work is that.....she.....has traumatic experiences too?

To me, it really came across as the writers didn't know anything about how to deal with extremely traumatic experiences in a counseling context. We're literally talking about a life and death experience here. Big time trauma. And their response is to bring in Tilly to teach them a play?!

 

[firehawk12]

@fireproof78
Not mocking, just saying that the Scooby gang's "Therapy didn't do much, it mainly focused on Tarima when she got back and got shuffled to the academy side. people looking at her weirdly, and her thing on not being "Normal"
The rest of the gang.. didn't do much in the way of therapy. just was background noise.

Arguably they learn the lesson of the play from reading it and as they performed it over the montage of the Doctor raising SAM.

Which kind of implies it takes at least a week, because 3 days = 5 years and the Doctor raised her back up to 16... so maybe they kept practicing the play every day during that week, even if we never see it at all and Tarima only shows up at the end.

I dunno, the structure of the episode is strange but I say that about all of them. lol

 

[Mr Awe]

I think the issue is how it's presented in the episode as a class they're forced to take. Would a therapist use the authority of a teacher to tell her patients that she doesn't care if they don't appreciate her methods, she'll do it anyway? Or lecture her patients if they tell her that they don't think the therapy is working?

Imagine someone losing a loved one and then their boss tells them they have to take a mandatory theatre class in order to keep their job instead of just telling them to find a therapist or psychologist... because the theatre class is secretly a counselling session in disguise.

Great points. It's just utterly bizarre when you start thinking about it. It really is.

 

[ToddCam]

I can't stop thinking about how awful having a bright blue light on your neck would be. I like to sleep in as complete darkness as possible.

 

[Jag2112]

Screencaps gallery now online:

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy ScreenCaps "The Life of the Stars" (S1:E8)

Cygnus-X1.Net: A Tribute to Star Trek

www.cygnus-x1.net

 

[Greg Cox]

I can't stop thinking about how awful having a bright blue light on your neck would be. I like to sleep in as complete darkness as possible.

Maybe it dims when she goes into sleep mode?

 

[Michael]

Just nitpicking, but "Werther" is a novel ("Briefroman"), but point taken ... in English, we got "Lord of the Flies", too... and, more interesting, "Keep the Aspidistra Flying" by George Orwell and John Steinbeck's "Cannery Row". And a couple of short stories. I really enjoyed these classes.

Right! And I even know where the confusion comes from: A few years ago I saw “Werther” produced as a one-man play. I remember how impressed I was by how the actor was able to memorize all those lines and keep the play interesting all by himself.

 

[Detached Nacelle]

The scene with Tarima talking about the alcohol and having up to three sips instantly made me think of futurama and the spoonfuls of space honey.

 

[tenmei]

Had she been drinking before inviting Caleb to meet up for some Holodeck and Chill?

 

[Agony_Boothb]

I can't stop thinking about how awful having a bright blue light on your neck would be. I like to sleep in as complete darkness as possible.

It has a blue light filter

 

[Dar70]

Why was Reno the captain in the simulator??? ....also with this show being 900 years after TOS why do they even need to go to a derelict ship for training where they can die?? Holo technology can create any scenario.

 

[fireproof78]

I think the issue is how it's presented in the episode as a class they're forced to take. Would a therapist use the authority of a teacher to tell her patients that she doesn't care if they don't appreciate her methods, she'll do it anyway? Or lecture her patients if they tell her that they don't think the therapy is working?

Imagine someone losing a loved one and then their boss tells them they have to take a mandatory theatre class in order to keep their job instead of just telling them to find a therapist or psychologist... because the theatre class is secretly a counselling session in disguise.

In the Federation? Yeah, I'd believe it. In Starfleet? Yes, I'd believe it.

And I see mandated therapies as well in my job. And I'm not a member of the armed forces who and junior service members can be ordered by their CO to attend therapies. Same with anger management classes, parenting classes, etc.

However, I'm granting the methodology a measure of dramatic license because that's how these things work in drama. But it is believable enough to me.

Obviously, mileage will vary.

 

[fireproof78]

Fair enough. I can see the acting therapy thing being a secondary type of counseling that works in conjunction with more established, proven techniques that uses a fully trained mental health professional. Tilly might have some training in it but it's clearly not her main thing.

We see people step out of their spheres all the time. If it is, as many claim, the "best of the best" then cross-grained personnel on space future strikes me as the least odd thing.

 

[Fateor]

Why was Reno the captain in the simulator??? ....also with this show being 900 years after TOS why do they even need to go to a derelict ship for training where they can die?? Holo technology can create any scenario.

I can only assume because everyone involved is really incompetent at teaching.

 

[eschaton]

As I said upthread, my issue with Tilly doing the acting class is mostly that it felt like Tilly had ceased to exist, and they were just having Mary Wiseman teach the class. She has a BFA in Theatre from Boston University, and went to Julliard. Outside of Discovery, she's mainly a theatre actor (and indeed stepped back from DIS at one point to concentrate more on the stage). She actually played Emily at Julliard. While that article confirms that Wiseman didn't know ahead of time the contents of the episode (and the writers didn't know she was connected to Our Town) it does feel like the theatre slant was put in by the showrunners because they knew she was a theatre geek, and needed to include her in an episode somewhere.

Of course, Tilly was one of the least consistently written characters in Discovery. She starts out kind of neurodivergent coded, then it goes away and she's bubbly. Her role on the ship changes from just one junior assistant to Stamets, to apparently the only other person who knows about the spore drive other than him on the ship. Her lifelong dream is to be a captain, until it isn't. So having her suddenly veer yet again is at least consistent with past inconsistency.

In addition, I suppose Trek has a long history of allowing more of an actor's character to seep into the depiction over time. Certainly Picard became more and more Patrick Stewart as time passed, until there was little functional difference between the two.

 

[Fateor]

In addition, I suppose Trek has a long history of allowing more of an actor's character to seep into the depiction over time. Certainly Picard became more and more Patrick Stewart as time passed, until there was little functional difference between the two.

On the flip side of that, Patrick Stewart is very much an S tier actor.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Maybe it dims when she goes into sleep mode?

"Turn on Nite-lite"

 

[fireproof78]

more of an actor's character to seep into the depiction over time. Certainly Picard became more and more Patrick Stewart as time passed, until there was little functional difference between the two.

Same with Kirk. Sulu had the love of antique firearms in TOS but in TWOK it's Kirk.