Spontaneity & Creativity: Why Tech Needs Psychodrama
Ozge Kantas PhD
A glaring paradox lies at the heart of the digital boom: powerful tools are launched by creators who exhibit supreme confidence without corresponding psychological competence. They build interfaces optimized for “user stickiness,” keeping users locked inside digital loops regardless of emotional costs. The fallout is well-documented: un-guard railed LLMs violate ethical standards in mental health, and chatbots deploy “deceptive empathy” that can misguide vulnerable users during a crisis (Iftikhar et al., 2025). To Big Tech, interaction is merely revenue.
Conversely, clinicians, facilitators, and educators possess profound psychological competence but face fractured confidence regarding technology. They view AI as a sterile burden rather than an infrastructure—like electricity—that we cannot abandon. As group leaders, our job is to bridge this chasm. By blending Self-Determination Theory (SDT, Ryan & Deci, 2017) with J.L. Moreno’s action-based psychodrama, we can transform AI into a reliable digital auxiliary mirror that deepens human relatedness. Yet, we must design it intentionally.
Setting the Stage: The Learning Pact
Every transformative group requires a secure container; at work, at school, and at clinics. When introducing AI into a group dynamic, leaders must design a “Learning Pact” focused on safety, transparency, empowerment of competencies, voice, choice, and cultural diversity (Peters, Calvo & Ryan, 2018). To ensure digital tools act as an opportunity rather than an exhausting burden, we must ground them in the universal tenets of SDT (Kantas & Mavili, 2021):
- Clearly communicate what the technology is and how the group uses it. In my practice and classes, my custom AI digital twins operate outside of diagnostic frameworks like the DSM; they are my extended brain using social psychology, mechanical auxiliaries that facilitate internal dialogue and build leadership skills.
- Companies provide AI tools to employees, but do not explicitly state how it is monitored. Users must retain full voice and choice. AI must never dictate; it must serve as an active mirror illuminating patterns without deceptive empathy.
- When making a group agreement to how to make AI as another group member, move past passive, digital compliance. Ground the agreement physically: “To commit to this room, show me a physical gesture that seals your vow.” Human connection must always transcend tech hype. Relational AI acts as a supportive container double, sharpening our relational muscles so we can return to our human circles completely integrated.
Navigating Technological Sociometry
Sociometry maps the invisible web of attractions and repulsions within a system (Blatner, 2000). People do not enter rooms with neutral tech feelings; they bring historical baggage, age anxieties, or immense excitement, some are stuck in an internal narrative that says, “I don’t understand this, I don’t like it, and I’m being left behind.” Competence and confidence are revealed as fluid variables within a living matrix of relationships. To dissolve this friction, group leaders can deploy interactive spectrograms to visualize the group’s internal terrain to mark themselves where they feel they are:
[LOW] ———————– KNOWLEDGE/COMPETENCE ——————– [HIGH]
[LOW] ——————————————CONFIDENCE ——————– [HIGH]
AI as a Surplus Reality and Role Theory
This is where the magic of J.L. Moreno converges with modern software engineering. The tech world prides itself on inventing “generative AI,” but psychodramatists have been generating realities for over a century through the concept of Surplus Reality (Moreno, 1953; 1961, 1965). Surplus reality is the expression of the unlived lines of our lives’ tangible enactments of things that have never happened, can never happen, or have yet to happen. When prompting AI, we engage in this exact process, commanding it to: “Pretend you are my research mentor” or “Pretend you are a version of myself unafraid of confrontation.” We are casting the AI into a specialized role.
Through Moreno’s Role Theory, individuals recognize they are a complex ecosystem of coexisting roles—an internal enterprise I call “Me Inc.” Overwhelm happens when one internal role hijacks the entire system. Action methods teach people to step back, view their internal role atom, and convene an Internal Leadership Council to activate their Autonomous Healing Center.
When trained to prompt AI from these distinct internal roles, users stop asking for generic advice and begin directing the technology like an expert stage manager. An executive can use a Data Scientist role to cross-examine financial forecasts, while a career-pivoter uses a Gatekeeper role to practice setting boundaries against parenthood rushes. This psychodramatic role reversal unlocks true spontaneity and prevents cognitive exhaustion.
Moving From Conserve to Creation
Our highest calling as group leaders is to transform rigid cultural conserves into fluid, spontaneous action. By bringing psychological competence to the digital table, we establish a trauma-informed, experiential ecosystem where technology is radically reclaimed. In J.L. Moreno’s 1947 monograph, The Future of Man’s World, he outlined a visionary framework to counteract modern technological and psychological alienation. His work focuses on sociometry (the study of social configurations) and sociatry (the healing of society) to ensure human spontaneity and creativity evolve faster than machinery and robotics.
By changing prompt engineering from a cold technical skill into an act of profound psychological role reversal, we unlock true spontaneity and prevent the cognitive exhaustion plaguing today’s education, workforce, and mental health landscape.
References
Blatner, A. (2000). Foundations of psychodrama: History, theory, and practice (4th ed.). Springer Publishing Company.
Iftikhar, Z., Xiao, A., Ransom, S., Huang, J., & Suresh, H. (2025). How LLM Counselors Violate Ethical Standards in Mental Health Practice: A Practitioner-Informed Framework. Proceedings of the AAAI ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society, 8(2), 1311–1323. https://doi.org/10.1609/aies.v8i2.36632
Kantas, Ö., & Mavili, A. (2021). Self-Determination Theory as a Suitable Theoretical Basis and Measurement Approach for Psychodrama Interventions. Journal of Psychodrama, Sociometry, and Group Psychotherapy, 68(1), 7-32.
Moreno, J. L. (1945). The Future of Man’s World. Sociometry, Group Psychotherapy: A Symposium, 297-304
Moreno, J. L. (1961). The role concept, a bridge between psychiatry and sociology. American Journal of Psychiatry.
Moreno, J. L. (1953). Who Shall Survive? Foundations of Sociometry, Group Psychotherapy, and Sociodrama. Beacon House.
Moreno, J. L. (1965). Psychodrama Volume I. Beacon House.
Peters, D., Calvo, R. A., & Ryan, R. M. (2018). Designing for wellbeing: A Better Technology approach to Needs Satisfaction in Human-Computer Interaction. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 792.
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2017). Self-determination theory: Basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness. Guilford Publishing.