The Censor (Johnstone)
Keith Johnstone, Impro (1979)
Also known as The Inner Censor
Johnstone's name for the internalized editor, installed by education, that suppresses our first imaginative impulses and is the chief enemy of spontaneity.
Known for
- Developed in the 'Notes on Myself' opening of Impro, where Johnstone traces how schooling taught him to distrust and edit his own mind.
- His key inversion: the imagination is not the problem; the fear of what the imagination reveals is, so the work is to disable the censor, not to generate ideas.
- Practical antidote is obviousness and first-thought play: stop choosing and the suppressed material surfaces on its own.
- Reframes 'lack of creativity' as over-control, which is why he treated relaxation, masks, and games as ways past the censor.
Connected to
People
Notes
Distinct from Boal’s later ‘cop in the head’ (internalized political oppression): Johnstone’s censor is framed psychologically and educationally rather than as a tool of social control, though the two ideas rhyme.