Did other ships have counselors, too?

[{ Emilia }]

Despite Deanna often being underused by the writers or just used to state the obvious... I thought it was an interesting idea to put a counselor on the bridge of a ship. She was a bit of a mix between a psychologist and a sociologist giving advice when it came to the behavior of the bridge crew and of people they encountered.

I would like to believe that the future Trek society has realized that this is a valuable addition to a crew that's otherwise mostly busy with technological and security issues. It's the realization that you need experts in human (and alien) interaction and behavior on a spaceship.
I suppose every ship needs a counselor but what really made Troi's role stand out was that she was actually on the bridge, giving advice.

I think it's a bit of a shame that other series completely dropped this role and went with a more traditional pseudo-military setup.
Does the Trek canon feature any other counselors on Starfleet bridges?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The Brattain from "Night Terrors" had a counselor (Andrus Hagan).

 

[Push The Button]

Kirk's Enterprise had one, his name was McCoy. He was one hell of a bartender too.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The Brattain from "Night Terrors" had a counselor (Andrus Hagan).

He was Betazoid, but they described his position as science adviser.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Adviser, counselor, same thing.

 

[Nerys Myk]

^ Adviser, counselor, same thing.

Not in the context the word is used for Troi.
Ezri was a counselor on DS9.

 

[Smellincoffee]

Perhaps the counselor position is only available for capital ships (Galaxy, Sovereigns, other massive ones) with crews in the hundreds. Then again, the deep space nature of the Enterprise-D's mission have been part of why it kept a counselor aboard. Wasn't Ezri a counselor prior to being Dax'd?

 

[Nerys Myk]

Perhaps the counselor position is only available for capital ships (Galaxy, Sovereigns, other massive ones) with crews in the hundreds. Then again, the deep space nature of the Enterprise-D's mission have been part of why it kept a counselor aboard. Wasn't Ezri a counselor prior to being Dax'd?

And after

 

[F. King Daniel]

I'm sure having a therapist on board to assist the crew with stresses and traumas makes sense.

Having her the bridge and the captain asking her opinion on every little thing is just silly.

 

[Timo]

Perhaps Picard was special - in the Ralph Wiggum sense?

It makes sense. The Enterprise is the showpiece of the Federation, with diversity incarnated on her bridge. There's the Blind Helmsman, the Amazing Speaking Klingon, the Recovering Rape Victim We Saved, the One and Only Sentient Android, the Ambassador's Daughter. Why not the Mentally Challenged Captain? Him requiring constant counseling would be no different from LaForge needing his VISOR.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[a thousand-yard stare]

Wasn't T'Pol Archer's Advisor/Watchdog/Minder/Liason (until she 'went native' and joined Starfleet...)?

 

[Spot261]

Perhaps Picard was special - in the Ralph Wiggum sense?

It makes sense. The Enterprise is the showpiece of the Federation, with diversity incarnated on her bridge. There's the Blind Helmsman, the Amazing Speaking Klingon, the Recovering Rape Victim We Saved, the One and Only Sentient Android, the Ambassador's Daughter. Why not the Mentally Challenged Captain? Him requiring constant counseling would be no different from LaForge needing his VISOR.

Timo Saloniemi

Jeez Timo surely you can do better than this?

 

[Forbin]

I think the counselor concept was put in place because the Enterprise had families aboard, on a mission of exploration that was supposed to have them all away from home for up to ten years. It was certainly a good idea to have someone aboard to help people with the emotional problems that could arise from such a long time aboard ship, and with the inevitable problems that crop up in any family. Having her also available on the bridge during contact with aliens, to advise the captain, was a logical secondary (or primary?) job.

That the show threw half that shit away for an action/adventure format, with Troi posing prettily on the bridge all the time, was an unfortunate evolution.

 

[Forbin]

^ Adviser, counselor, same thing.

Are you kidding? How is a "SCIENCE advisor" anything but a person who advised people about science?
You wouldn't go to Bill Nye for marriage counseling.

 

[Nyotarules]

Every starship should have a shrink in the ST universe, if you're going to live together with other species for five years in a tin can, and not shoot each other or use the airlocks.

 

[stardream]

I vaguely remember Janeway lamenting the fact that Voyager had no counselor because their's was supposed to be such a short term mission.

 

[Timo]

Crew welfare does seem to be a significant concern, in the sense of Kirk's ship having all those Recreation Rooms including one that spans three decks; a CMO skilled in Space Psychology; an outside observer on crew psychology on at least one mission; and rather reckless "at all costs" shore leave on random uncharted planets.

Have we seen glaring exceptions to this? Most "guest" starships are only briefly seen, so it's difficult to tell. The VOY hero ship originally launched on a brief mission while missing some key personnel, so the absence of a Counselor could have been a fleeting artifact of, as Janeway in "The Cloud" puts it, "the nature of our mission", rather than something characteristic to that type and size of ship.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[CorporalClegg]

I would bet every ship in Starfleet has some kind of mental health officer. It would be negligent not to. But I doubt most of them ever stepped foot on the bridge.

ETA: I'll add that, I doubt Troi was the only psychiatrist or psychologist on this ship. (I was never really sure what she was.) She was just the department head. But there were plenty of those who never went on the bridge.

Her role as 'counselor' was generally nondescript. There was never any evidence she had any mediatory or diplomatic training, at least not beyond what you'd expect to be standard training for ranking command officers. They only asset she every seemed to provide was her limited telepathic ability, which only worked at the speed of the plot and never seemed to amount to anything.

Personally, I wish they had spent more time exploring her role as a psychotherapist.

 

[Six of Twelve]

I would say that ships above a certain size, those with longer missions, would have counselors. I also think that Starbases would have them available as well, both those on planet and those stations in space. Can you imagine being stuck at a base in space in the middle of the galaxy's BFE without going a little buggy from time to time? Even DS9 had one, and they were directly adjacent to Bajor, which no doubt provided wonderful shore leave opportunities.

As for Troi, I don't think she was on the bridge allllll the time. We have to remember that one episode didn't bleed directly into the next one, and that there was a lot of "offstage" time we never saw, which I'd imagine Troi was doing her primary job of seeing people in her office below decks. After all, I can't imagine she saw Reg Barclay up on the bridge when he needed her.

For very small ships with limited missions, I don't imagine they had counselors. At best, they might have one crew member whose primary function was something else, but who might have minored in counseling at the academy, who filled in for one in a pinch, when stopping at a Starbase wasn't convenient.

 

[Voth commando1]

I don't see why not-dealing with the psychological health of the crew would be an issue regardless of the ship.