From the author: Introduction to the concept of crisis, understanding its necessity in the development of personality A person’s life is often presented as a path along which a person meets and says goodbye to people, faces and overcomes obstacles, finds himself at a crossroads, is forced decide. There is everything along the way: a fair wind, rains of tears, storms of emotions, fireworks of happiness and rivers of sadness, etc. Each person, at different moments in life, under the influence of different circumstances, is faced with the question of choosing a path: what is your path, how to live, with what quality of life. It happens that we don’t go our own way or at some point we turn off it, “get off track,” and, losing our way, we risk losing ourselves. At this moment, there is often a feeling of hopelessness, the meaninglessness of the further path. A person is, as it were, on the edge of life. This region is called a crisis. Well-known foreign and domestic scientists studied the understanding of the concept of crisis (I. P. Manokha, T. S. Kirilenko, P. P. Gornostay, T. M. Titarenko, L. V. Sokhan, E. Erickson, D. Matteson, E. P., Grof S., Krupnik, B. G. Ananyev, S. L. Rubinshtein, S. K. Nartova-Bochaver, L. I. Antsiferova, A. A. Kronik, R. A. Akhmerov, F. Yu Vasilyuk, K. N. Vasilevskaya, L. Peltsman, M. Sh. Magomed-Eminov, K. N. Artemova, V. V. Kozlov, etc.) Despite the use of different epistemologies regarding the explanation of the crisis, the authors invest in this concept similar semantic content. Understanding critical situations as situations of exacerbation of developmental contradictions in a person’s life, Researchers are also unanimous in the opinion that the paths that a subject uses to overcome a crisis in the future determine his fate. Being in a crisis, a person sometimes feels the desire to end everything, to leave life, but this desire coexists with an equally strong desire to live and survive. Many of the feelings that a person experiences at this moment are unusual for him and are considered unacceptable in society, since at this moment feelings often manifest themselves through inappropriate behavior that is not usual for the image of a given person. As a result, a person finds himself in a cage with his own naked “I”. Society in most cases is not able to see and provide real involvement to a person in crisis; at this moment he is an outcast, causing both regret and fear in others, since he becomes a living reminder of the inevitability of the “transition”, in which there are always great losses, but and great gains, and for the latter to happen, it is necessary to go through this path of overcoming. The Chinese pictogram of the word crisis reflects the idea of ​​crisis. It consists of two components: one depicts danger, and the other (by the way, larger in size) is opportunity. It's like a tunnel with the possibility of exiting into the light. But the state of tension that is created by the spring of truth stretched between opportunity and danger pushes a person to a way out, to further development. The situation is complicated by the fact that when faced with a situation of crisis, a person automatically involves people, so to speak, from his inner circle. Eyewitnesses, participants in rescue operations, and even just television viewers watching what is happening on air during terrorist attacks or disasters experience the same experience. And all these people face serious psychological problems. Currently, in many fields of knowledge (medicine, psychology, sociology, political science, etc.) specialists are looking for an answer to the question of what a crisis in a person’s life is, what is its nature, consequences and how to avoid the destructive consequences of the crisis, how to help a person reach a new level of development, what factors, what psychological characteristics will protect a person from the negative impacts of the crisis. It should be noted that most psychology dictionaries do not define crisis, referring to “crisis state”, “crisis personality”, “crisis therapy”, “crisis assistance”, etc. From the Greek kreses, crisis is a decision, a turning point , outcome, inliterally translated, it means “separation of roads”; in psychology, it is defined as a serious condition caused by some reason or as a sharp change in the status of personal life. A crisis state in the most general sense can be defined as a certain imbalance in a person’s life and activity, and even a breakdown of the nervous system. mental and somatic state. The relevance of the crisis is determined by a number of factors, both universal and specific, inherent only to our country. General human factors include a sharp increase in the number of man-made disasters and “hot spots” throughout the world. People daily encounter (mainly thanks to the media) crimes against individuals, natural and psychogenic disasters. In our country, there are also specific features of life that increase the risk of crisis situations (urbanization, radical changes in the way of life, political, economic, social, environmental troubles, instability in the country, loss of habitual, stereotypical values ​​and attitudes by almost all segments of the population). The above factors cause a massive increase in tension, an increase in the level of general anxiety, a tendency to intensify such conditions as loneliness, uselessness, meaninglessness of existence, fear for the future, etc. In addition, we can talk about crisis states of entire population groups. But with all its destructive power, a crisis is also one of the inevitable and necessary moments of life, one of the driving forces of development, including the development of an individual, group, and society. A crisis is always a moment of choice from at least two possible alternatives, a moment of choosing a regressive or progressive solution in further development. Humanity has always known this fact; fairy tales of all times and peoples are an example of this: this is the well-known situation of a hero at a crossroads. The choice of a further path is easily given to the hero only in fairy tales, but it is important that avoiding the choice is impossible, unnecessary and even dangerous. The entire subsequent life of the individual depends on what kind of choice is made. Even in the archaic era, rituals of a person’s transition from one status state to another (birth, wedding, funeral), various types of initiation: initiation into a specific group new for a given person - age (adults, old people), social (warrior, hunter, shaman, etc.), role (mother, wife, leader). “In many ways, a crisis state resembles a rite of passage, i.e. initiation of the individual into new secrets of life. According to Professor V.V. Kozlov, it is “crises that lead a person to a deep experience of the mystery of the meaning of life, the spiritual spaces of culture. A crisis is not just a way to transform a personality into a new quality and a more complete social individual, but also something more.” Consequently, a crisis is always a test for the individual. According to V. Dahl, a test is “... to experience in practice, to try, to find out, to be convinced by research, to gain experience, to disassemble, to learn in detail, to find out through experience... - to endure, endure, endure, experience something, encounter something in your life” . Consequently, a crisis is a necessary, and even mandatory, stage that occurs on the life path of every person and shapes this path. A crisis is not determined by a person’s desire or readiness to make a “transition,” and, as a rule, not entering into a crisis can be much more dangerous than choosing the alternatives offered by the crisis. It is obvious that a psychologically crisis state requires concentration and the use of all the forces available to a person to solve the problems that life has set before him. Entering a crisis means entering a point of transformation, when life changes at all levels: cognitive (introjection of new life values ​​or new hierarchy of values), affective (the ability to pass a test while maintaining integrity) and behavioral (the development of new behavioral patterns). It should be noted that both the crisis itself and its transformational force create.