After Picard’s outburst, Robert wasn’t touched, but he did understand his brother better than he ever had before. “So,” he says, “my brother is a human being after all.” It seems that Picard’s habit of being aloof with his crew extended to his family. With his teary, mud-soaked confession, Picard came down from Olympus. Robert says:
“This is going to be with you a long time, Jean-Luc. A long time. You have to learn to live with it. You have a simple choice now — live with it below the sea with Louis, or above the clouds with the Enterprise.“
Trauma cannot be outrun. It can only be confronted and handled and healed from. Picard and Robert then return to the château to share some wine and get a little too tipsy in the afternoon. It’s a cathartic drink.
One might assume that psychiatric help in the 24th century is more advanced than in the present and that healing processes operate more swiftly. Picard likely continued his meetings with Troi for a time after “Family.” Only a few years later, Picard encountered another Borg (in the episode “I, Borg”), and he was able to face the situation without flinching. In “Descent,” he confronted the Borg again, and he was clearly back on his feet, no longer frightened.
For the 1996 film “Star Trek: First Contact,” the writers decided, somewhat arbitrarily, that Picard was still wounded and now bafflingly driven by violent revenge. “First Contact” is a slick, exciting action film, but Picard is completely out of character. The calm, judicious, and ostensibly healed Starfleet captain was now a screaming, murderous action hero. It’s not a good continuation of the Borg story. “Family” is the conclusion we needed.