Review of the chapter “The Canon of Creativity” from the book “Sociometry and the Science of Man “, published in the Sociometry Journal

 by Anna Bobikova 11.2025

Audience: clinicians, facilitators, educators

Companion resource: a short video walk-through, so you can watch instead of reading 14 pages of mid-century theory.

Introduction

Moreno’s point: change runs on two engines—spontaneity (the “act now” spark) and creativity (the new role/response/solution that spark produces). He puts this duo ahead of drives and defenses and says they show up in real encounters, not just in the basement of your unconscious. I’m reading this through my own lens—researching psychodrama for self-help and video delivery—and my job is to shrink dense theory into bite-size, usable practical ideas (with a wink, not a yawn). And if you’re a “watch, don’t read” person, I’ve also made a short video version of this review.

The problem JL Moreno is solving

In 1955, psychology was very dominated by ideas like repression, sublimation, neurosis, libido, etc. Moreno says that frame is too passive and too backward-looking. He thinks the real “main problem of psychology” is how people generate fresh, adequate responses in new situations — in other words, how they create a next move in the present moment. He explicitly positions his theory as an alternative to purely psychoanalytic explanations.

Why this matters for us in 2025: this is exactly what we try to do in applied psychodrama/drama therapy, coaching, psychoeducation, even workplace trainings — help someone produce a response they did not know they could produce, without blowing them out of their window of tolerance (Dan Siegel).

What JL Moreno actually did (not just philosophy)

This is not just armchair theory. Moreno describes using a “theater of spontaneity,” basically an early psychodrama lab, where people enact real interpersonal scenes and are observed for readiness, anxiety level, adequacy of response, flexibility, originality, etc. He treated these enactments as test conditions for spontaneity and creativity “in the here and now,” not just talk-about-it.

He also emphasizes “surplus reality”: on stage, you can finish or replay what real life did not allow, with support, so you get to complete something psychologically unfinished. So we are already looking at psychodrama as research-in-action, not just performance.

Core usable ideas for practice

✓ Spontaneity = adequate response to a new situation. Not just being wild or different. If it ís new and it fits the moment, that is healthy spontaneity. If it is new but chaotic (disorganized, flooding, unsafe), he calls that pathological spontaneity. If it is technically “appropriate” but totally rigid and scripted, that is low spontaneity.

→ This is gold when you are coaching self-regulation. You can say: “We are not aiming for drama. We are aiming for a response that is both fresh and useful.”

✓ Creativity is the product; spontaneity is the ignition. Spontaneity is the warm-up. Creativity is the created thing (a new role, a reframe, a repaired boundary). The “cultural conserve” is what gets left behind after the act — like a script, a method, a norm. He warns that if we only repeat the conserve, we stop being alive in the moment.

 → This is our field problem: trainers teach The Method and students imitate form without inner contact.

✓ Warm-up matters. He defines warm-up as the process that generates spontaneity. He treats warm-up as measurable: is the person anxious? frozen? oriented? able to mobilize? That means warm-up is not “fluff,” it is clinical prep.

 → This is directly relevant for trauma-informed work and for digital delivery (Anna’s dissertation), because we cannot just drop someone into catharsis without warm-up and expect regulation.

In my video course work and dissertation: I am specifically studying whether short, structured video modules can safely train micro-warm-ups and role-based self-support (for example, practicing a supportive inner voice or rehearsing a boundary) without triggering full-blown trauma reenactment. This chapter basically gives theoretical backing for treating warm-up and contained role practice as legitimate “mini creative acts,” not just warm-up games.

How to use this in 2026 practice

→ With clients / students / teams, we do not have to “blow it all open.” We can target a specific new, adequate response and rehearse that. That is psychodrama at a micro-scale, and it is ethically safer for self-help formats (when you teach client to use it at home - Anna’s dissertation)

→ The chapter supports psychodrama as a generator of safe new roles — not just a place to discharge pain. JL frames growth as building capacity for adaptive action in the present moment, not “bleeding out on stage.”

Limitations

✓ There is no randomized trial. This is conceptual + observational lab work from psychodrama sessions. Evidence level = foundational theory, not outcome data.

✓ His language is very universal/absolute (“spontaneity is the supreme power in the world”), which is inspiring but not culturally or clinically nuanced by today’s standards.

✓ He assumes you can stage intense material. In modern trauma work (and definitely in self-help video for the public - Anna’s research), we have to gate that very hard.

One safe micro-practice you can immediately borrow for clients / students / yourself  

“Warm-Up to a Future You” (derived from Moreno’s spontaneity/warm-up idea, scaled down for self-use):

→ Put an empty chair in front of you.

→ Imagine the “you” who has already handled the current situation in a healthy way.

→ Sit in that chair and speak, out loud, one sentence that starts with: “Here is what I did that helped…”

→ Go back to your original seat and take the message in.  

This builds an adequate new response (“creativity”) by inducing a brief, focused warm-up (“spontaneity”) rather than dragging you through full past trauma content.

Conclusion

→ Moreno says change comes from spontaneity (the live spark) + creativity (the new role), not just catharsis or analysis.

→ He treats warm-up as clinically meaningful and measurable, not fluff, and builds psychodrama around rehearsing adequate new responses in the here-and-now.

→ For us now: this supports teaching micro-action tools (like brief role rehearsal and supportive self-dialogue) in short, structured video lessons and psychoeducational courses — which is exactly what I’m building in my video library and studying in my dissertation on self-help psychodrama.

Reference

Moreno, J. L. (1955). Theory of spontaneity-creativity. Sociometry, 18(4), 105. https://doi.org/10.2307/2785848