I love a good TTRPG. There is nothing quite like one. As much as I love video games and VR, there is something uniquely immersive about the shared experience of a tabletop roleplaying game. LARPing and Renaissance Faires might be among the few things that can surpass TTRPGs when it comes to throwing yourself completely into another world.

But folks, if you’ve ever played a tabletop RPG for long enough, you’ve probably noticed something strange: people don’t just play characters — they reveal themselves through them.

Think about the quiet player who somehow always ends up becoming the moral compass of the group, the jokey one who suddenly takes responsibility when things get serious, or the person who swears they hate conflict but keeps creating characters who stand between danger and everyone else. What’s interesting is that none of this necessarily feels forced. It happens naturally, often without anyone realising it is happening at all.

So the question becomes: why and how?

Why does roleplaying — something fictional, playful and sometimes incredibly silly — so often feel personal, meaningful or revealing? To answer that, we need a model that helps explain how we come to understand ourselves through our relationships with other people.

That’s where the Johari Window comes in.

What Is the Johari Window?

The Johari Window is a psychological model concerned with self-awareness, communication and interpersonal relationships. At its simplest, it asks us to consider two questions: “Is this known to me?” and “Is this known to other people?”

Combining those questions creates four areas:

Open Area — known to you and known to others.
Blind Spot — unknown to you but recognised by others.
Hidden Area — known to you but not revealed to others.
Unknown Area — unknown both to you and to others.

The important thing is that these areas aren’t fixed. Through experience, feedback and self-disclosure, information can move between them. Someone telling you that you’re good at calming people during arguments, for example, might move a previously unnoticed strength from your Blind Spot into your Open Area.

The Johari Window was developed in 1955 by American psychologists Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham as part of their work on group dynamics. Luft would later develop the ideas behind the model further in his work on group processes and human interaction.

The name “Johari” actually comes from combining their first names — Joseph and Harington.

And yes, this is true. I was very disappointed to discover that was the origin of the name.

The model emerged during a period when psychologists were increasingly interested in group dynamics, interpersonal communication and experiential learning. Rather than being designed as a diagnostic test, the Johari Window offered a relatively simple way of thinking about how we understand ourselves and communicate with other people.

And that last part is particularly important when we start talking about roleplaying.

How Roleplaying Can Help Us Develop ?

At a good table, roleplay creates a unique environment. It is social, but buffered by fiction; emotional, but not necessarily autobiographical; and it allows us to take risks within the relative safety of a fictional world. That combination can create an interesting environment for self-discovery.

Let’s start with the Open Area. When you play consistently with a group, patterns begin to emerge: the way you solve problems, the roles you gravitate towards and how you react under pressure. Over time, those traits can become shared knowledge — not because you announced them to the table, but because you expressed them through play.

Then we have the Blind Spot, and this is where group play becomes particularly interesting. Other players may notice things about you that you haven’t noticed yourself. Maybe someone points out, “You always protect NPCs,” or, “Whenever our plans fall apart, you’re the one who takes charge.” Perhaps you constantly play reckless characters but are surprisingly careful when another player’s character is in danger.

Roleplaying makes these behaviours observable within a shared experience. That doesn’t mean every choice your character makes secretly reveals something profound about your psyche — sometimes you just want to seduce the dragon — but repeated patterns can give us something interesting to reflect upon.

Then there’s the Hidden Area.

Fiction creates distance, and that distance may allow people to explore ideas or emotions without having to discuss them directly. A player might explore fears around abandonment through a character who is fiercely devoted to their party. Someone interested in control or responsibility might gravitate towards being the group’s strategist. Anger can be expressed through a fictional barbarian without us automatically concluding that the player themselves is an angry person.

Nothing has to be a confession. Nothing has to be explained or justified.

The character simply creates another way of exploring an idea.

Research into tabletop roleplaying is beginning to provide some evidence for this relationship between characters and identity. Recent research examining tabletop roleplaying games and their potential therapeutic qualities found an association between players relating to their characters in personal ways — including viewing them as symbolic secondary selves — and improvements in their sense of identity.

That doesn’t mean creating a D&D character automatically improves your mental health or reveals your secret inner self. The researchers themselves highlight limitations in the available evidence and the importance of other factors surrounding the player and their environment. But it does suggest there may be something meaningful happening in the relationship between player, character and identity.

And then we reach the Unknown Area.

This is where things get really interesting.

Roleplaying allows us to experiment with traits we might never normally embody. Someone who is quiet might try playing an incredibly charismatic bard. Someone who avoids confrontation might become the party’s decisive paladin. Players can experiment with confidence, assertiveness, compassion, leadership and moral courage inside an environment where the consequences remain largely fictional.

Sometimes players surprise themselves. They make a decision they didn’t expect to make or take charge of a situation when they would normally remain quiet.

And perhaps they discover:

I can actually do this.

That’s not necessarily therapy. It isn’t even necessarily intentional.

But it can be discovery.

The Importance of a Safe Table

When we put all of this together, something important becomes clear. Roleplaying doesn’t just have the potential to reflect who we are; it may also help expand what we know about ourselves.

But there is an important condition here: psychological safety.

If a table mocks vulnerability, players may retreat further into the Hidden Area. If feedback becomes judgement, discovering a Blind Spot can become embarrassing rather than constructive. And if experimentation is punished or ridiculed, players are hardly going to feel comfortable exploring the Unknown.

Healthy tables do the opposite. They protect disclosure, allow people to experiment and let players be seen without feeling as though they are being dissected. They recognise that a character choice might mean something deeply personal to a player — or it might mean absolutely nothing — and they allow the player to decide which it is.

This is also why we need to be careful about treating TTRPGs as therapy in themselves. Research into this area is promising, but still developing, and researchers have stressed that factors such as culture, environment, relationships and individual circumstances all play a role.

Gestalt therapy offers a useful idea here: we need to consider a person as a whole — the sum of their experiences, environment, relationships and circumstances — rather than reducing them to one behaviour or event. The same principle applies here. TTRPGs may be a useful tool for helping some people explore themselves, connect with others or even heal, but they are still only one part of a much larger picture.

And that’s why good tables can feel different.

They don’t just tell stories. They can create spaces where people grow together without being pressured to perform, disclose something personal or explain themselves.

Roleplaying can be meaningful not because it’s “just a game”, but because it is shared, fictional and safe.

Sometimes, the truest parts of ourselves are the ones we discover while pretending to be someone else.

And if you’re struggling and need genuine support, please reach out to someone who can help. TTRPGs can provide friendship, connection and an incredible outlet, but they aren’t a replacement for professional support when you need it.

After all, we all need a little help sometimes.

Research and Further Reading

Luft, J. (1969). Of Human Interaction: The Johari Model. Palo Alto, California: National Press Books.

Luft, J. (1963). Group Processes: An Introduction to Group Dynamics. Palo Alto, California: National Press Books.

Mann, D. (2021). Gestalt Therapy: 100 Key Points & Techniques. New York, NY: Routledge.

Hough, M. (2021). Counselling Skills and Theory. 5th ed. London: Hodder Education.

Snodgrass, J. G., et al. (2026). Tabletop Role-Playing Games as Drama Therapy in the Wild: Character-Player Bonds, Identity, and Mental Health. PubMed PMID: 41773575.

Rogers, C. (1957). The necessary and sufficient conditions of therapeutic personality change. TACD Journal, [online] 17(1), pp.95–103. doi:10.1080/1046171x.1989.12034347.