Deanna Looked Great in Her Uniform

"Her body be bangin'. She went from a jumpsuit." - Ensign Beckett Mariner, 2380

 

Makes you wonder...was Troi ever an Ensign or did she graduate with the rank of, say, Lieutenant due to her position as a counselor?
Which also brings up the old question about how the counseling/mental healthcare staff on Star Ships was organized. There simply had to be more counselors than just Deanna for a ship of 1000+ people. She probably was the "Chief Counselor" or something...it also brings up the question whether the other counselors also wore civilian clothing.

 

The inference I took was that she was the only counselor on board and one counselor for 1014 people seems pretty reasonable, because it's not like they're all are going to need counseling, some of them are also going to be children and civilians.

 

Who frequently need counseling such as shown with the girl in Imaginary Friend and Alexander. Living on board a starship is fraught with stressful and upsetting situations, especially after events like those shown in Disaster or Genesis there'd be heaps of traumatized civilians and children (as well as personnel) and it would be unwise to make them wait longer periods for their therapy sessions because the sole counselor needs to sit next to the Captain and look pretty (and possibly play tetris on that little console next to her chair) or has lost her empathic abilities/been taken over by some glowing alien cloud yet again.
There'd simply had to be a counseling/mental health team, just like Dr. Crusher wasn't the only physician.

 

We know there were multiple teachers, so I feel that there were other, private civilian counselors on the ship who worked independent of Troi.

 

Unless mental health was a separate department Dee answers to the CMO.

Although mental health is not all she is about.

She monitors promotions, and examines contacts with passing aliens, which I assume is the job of every Councillor and not just the empath who is intruding rapelikely on private thoughts...

Which would make Dee the political office and intelligence officer and the human resources officer... In a future where you work side by side with aliens, I don't think human resources is any longer called human resources.

 

I don't think she'd answer to the CMO, there's nothing in the series that really shows this being the case.

She was a psychologist and not psychiatrist, a PhD and not an MD, they'd likely be different branches of which Deanna would be the head, if there were any other counselors on the ship which there's really no evidence that there were.

 

From what I can remember Star Trek (the shows, I don't care about the Novelverse) never established a handy catch-all term for all sapient lifeforms. They sometimes seem to use "humanoid" in that sense, but that's also problematic considering species like the Sheliak and Medusans and such. Some Scifi universes do use "Sapient"

 

Star Trek was bad with sapient/sentient and just used "sentient" which isn't too accurate.

Data's infamous "Ode to Spot" poem says Spot isn't sentient, which cats are. They're not sapient, but cats (and all mammals) are sentient.

 

The EMH had counselling subroutines, and Bashir also did some counselling.

Ezri met in all the command staff meetings, but didn't seem to be under Julian.

 

She was under him except when she was on top of him.

 

It was so much easier with Melora.

No one is on top in zero gravity.

 

That's true. We also see Data go to a psychiatrist at one point during TNG. The psychiatrist being, of course, Sigmund Freud. Why settle for Counselor Troi when the father of psychoanalysis is one holodeck trip away?

 

The Freud program would have been written by a therapist to assure its content was useful, or the Freud program would have been written by a historian to make sure that its era accurate, and therefore useless.

 

In the USA Army the medical doctors start as Captains. (Not like Captain Picard who would be an 06, but as 03)
I did know a doctor that came in as an 04, he may have had prior service though.
I never paid attention to her rank until Jellico made her wear a uniform. I think I forgot that she wore the cheerleader uniform in the early seasons, I think in my mind, until Jellico, she was a civilian.

Maybe in the future maybe conselling only takes 15 minutes, unlike now, we throwbacks need 50 minutes.

 

s05e05, Disaster.

 

Yea, vaguely seem to recall that now.
Not one of my favorite episodes. Especially the parts of those three on the bridge.

Keiko and Worf in Ten Foreard was good.
And Data's head.
Otherwise, meh.

 

Iirc Troi is also referred to by her rank in Ecnounter at Farpoint. But yeah between EaF and Disaster I thinks he's only ever called Counselor, even in the opening titles, so the audience would be forgiven for forgetting that she even had a rank.

 

Plus, every crew member wore a uniform except her
I think I didn't like her as much because for a long time I wondered why she was on the bridge.
The school teachers weren't in the bridge or the barber or the bartender.
I think I would have liked the character better if she had worn a uniform.

 

The Captain was the barber if you believe a tall tale I once heard.

I don't recall Bashir in charge e of a ship, even though there was that season one episode where he got right up Mike's ass about who was in charge...

But they did make Juluan the intelligence officer when worf went on holiday.