Theoretical studies

Background. Comparative studies of the relationship between socio-psychological support and well-being of adolescents with the identification of the leading source of support in various difficult life situations and in cases of impaired socialisation have not been conducted previously. However, the current socio-historical and geopolitical context (COVID-19 pandemic, Special Military Operation) necessitates the search for methods to improve the psychological well-being of the young generation, which is highly vulnerable to negative environmental influences.

Objective. The aim was to reveal features of socio-psychological support from various sources and its connection with the psychological well-being of adolescents in cases of negative change in socialisation route and in difficult life situations (COVID-19, military operations, juvenile correctional facilities and pre-trial detention centers, dysfunctional families and boarding schools).

Methods. Comparative analysis of current theoretical and empirical research into psychological well-being of adolescents in various difficult situations was applied.

Results. The perceived support from family and friends makes the greatest contribution to adolescents' well-being in everyday and difficult life situations, but in the case of dysfunctional families and the absence of parental figures, correctional facilities, living in a zone of military operations, psychological and pedagogical support from a competent adult plays a crucial role and performs a substitutive function.

Conclusions. The results of the theoretical analysis revealed significant relationships between the aspects of adolescents' psychological well-being and various sources of socio-psychological support (family, friends, teachers, and caregivers), especially in the cases of sudden changes in the social situation of development during crisis and critical situations.

Background. Numerous experimental studies indicate high accuracy in recognising familiar faces, which is commonly attributed to the formation of generalised face representations. However, it remains unclear what specific information is generalised in these representations and which factors influence their formation.

Objective. The scope of the article is to review and systematise findings from modern research on the factors affecting the formation of face representations.

Methods. A theoretical review and analysis of studies published between 2015 and 2025 was conducted. Literature search was performed in the Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, and eLibrary databases using the following keywords: "face recognition", "face representation", "face learning", "perceptual learning", "variability", "social learning", "familiar faces", "familiarity".

Results. The analysis of the literature reveals two main approaches to studying the formation of face representations, each emphasising different factors. Within the first approach, perceptual information — specifically, the idiosyncratic within-person variability of a face — constitutes the core content of its representation. The primary factor shaping this representation is the perceptual variability in the observed stimuli. Experimental evidence supports the positive impact of variability in photographs of memorised faces on subsequent recognition — provided certain conditions are met, particularly the availability of cues for the correct interpretation of variability as a within-person change. According to the second approach, the content of face representations is not limited to within-person variability: supplementary knowledge about a person (e.g., name, profession, behaviour) also contributes to generalised representations and may be integrated into their content.

Conclusions. Research findings suggest that the form and content of face representations evolve with familiarity, transforming from a "percept" into a "concept". This perspective challenges traditional stage-based models of face processing, prompting a shift toward levels-of-processing frameworks. This approach enables a more comprehensive investigation of face perception within the context of human social cognition. In this regard, unexplored factors — such as the perceiver's active engagement and their interpersonal attitudes — appear particularly promising for future research.

Background. Integrity, as an initial characteristic of the personality is fundamental to psychological wellbeing. Nevertheless, despite the variety of existing approaches, there still remains a deficit of methodological tools in psychodiagnostics for researching personality integrity in its different aspects and manifestations.

Objective. The article represents an analytical review of research approaches, methodological solutions and existing empirical findings on personality integrity in contemporary foreign research.

Methods. The search for contemporary foreign theoretical and empirical studies using key words related to personality integrity, coherence and consistency, theoretical and methodological synthesis, systematization and analysis of identified research approaches, methodological solutions and empirical referents were applied. A total of 46 recent international publications indexed in the Scopus database were analyzed.

Results. The main directions of contemporary research on the empirical verification of personality integrity and coherence have been identified and characterized. Theoretical foundations and empirical data on the psychological manifestations of the studied phenomena have been systematized. Prospects for applying the obtained scientific results have been determined. This review demonstrates that a significant part of the works considered describes the consistency and interrelations of structural characteristics of integrity, identified from different methodological positions using standardized procedures. To access deeper layers of personality integrity, qualitative methods and narrative approaches are applied.

Conclusions. Among contemporary foreign studies promising areas are approaches that propose to consider personality integrity as a multi-level formation, and those that include in empirical research on integrity the study of the life context and meaning formation processes, which is close to the understanding of dynamic integrity in Russian psychology tradition. The use of mixed-methods, quantitative-qualitive research designs and diverse methodological approaches allow for the study of integrity not only in terms of static coherence but also of its capacity for constant change and self-development and for maintaining integrity in the face of life circumstances.

Background. The article is dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Victory of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945; it is devoted to the analysis of research conducted by Soviet scientists during the war years on the psychology of childhood. These studies contributed to both changes in the science of psychology itself and to the increase in trust in it in the society.

Objective. The article is focused on the task of showing with specific examples from the field of psychology (and partly pedagogy) of childhood, how the content of research has changed under the influence of the tasks of social practice.

Methods. The article uses theoretical methods of analyzing scientific literature on psychology and related disciplines. Additional reference to other sources — publications in newspapers, literary and artistic works, memoirs — allows us to talk about the interdisciplinary nature of the study. The scientific sources were materials from periodicals, which reflected data concerning the main areas of studying children by Soviet scientists in the period 1941–1945.

Results. The problems of studying the psychological characteristics of preschoolers and schoolchildren in the conditions of military life are outlined: psychologists reoriented themselves to studying the psyche and consciousness in the conditions of specific activities. Also, the theoretical position of S.L. Rubinstein on the unity of the processes of studying children, on the one hand, and their upbringing and education, on the other, is empirically illustrated. Psychologists' special attention to the issues of upbringing in wartime led to the accumulation of relevant data in educational psychology.

Conclusions. The main achievement of psychology, as follows from the works of Soviet psychologists during the Great Patriotic War, is a change in the position of psychology, which turned into a science organically included in practice.

Background. The social and political world situation of recent years has reawakened mass interest in the topic of psychotrauma. Studying this phenomenon, researchers raise questions about the ways to cope with the consequences of a traumatic experience. Humor is recognized as one of the important coping strategies in this case. However, this issue evokes a discussion on the appropriateness and effectiveness of using different variations of humor in traumatic situations.

Objective. The study aimed to examine possible positive and negative effects of humor when processing a traumatic experience.

Methods. The research engages theoretical analysis and generalisation of research results described in modern relevant scientific literature.

Results. Research data suggest that humor can both be an effective mechanism of psychological defense in crisis, traumatic and extreme situations, and may as well prevent successful interpersonal interaction, reducing the necessary level of social support. In particular, the use of dark humor, as well as aggressive and self-defeating humor styles, in psychotrauma is controversial. Numerous studies confirm the special role of dark humor for professionals at “high-risk” jobs.

Conclusions. Humor is indeed an important coping mechanism but the variety of its functions, types and styles, as well as different contexts of its use, do not allow us to oversimplify and unambiguously consider its effects. There are both positive and negative effects of humor when processing traumatic experiences. The question of the coping potential of dark humor, as well as aggressive and self-defeating humor styles, remains open and promising for study. It is known that they play an important role for coping in extreme situations in “high-risk” professions, but they can also be an indicator of burnout in case of fixation.

Background. L.S. Vygotsky’s vision of teaching and learning, which enables child development, remains useful for problems face by the modern-day school. Today, one of the central duties of education is, from the beginning of schooling, to lay the foundations for obtaining the ability to learn. Ability to learn is demonstrated when a person is faced with meaningful task, understands what is needed to solve it and knows how to compensate for their own limitations. Ability to learn is one of the aspects of human agency i.e., the ability to have and the self-perception of the ownership over one’s behaviour. This ability is manifested in children at a very early age and education can both strengthen and weaken, or even totally preclude its development. Agency in learning, which is the basis for future ability to learn, can enter the zone of proximal development (ZPD) as early as primary school age, but only in certain educational environments.

Objective. The current research is focused on the relationship between the teaching, learning, and development of the child as a subject of learning activity in the scientific school of D.B. El’konin and V.V. Davydov, who advanced the culturalhistorical theory.

Methods. Clinical studies of setting and solving learning tasks in primary and secondary schools.

Results. This article describes the most significant characteristics of the educational environment, through which the ability to learn can be developed for the majority of students: the content and form of learning activity in the strict, original meaning of this concept, which does not correspond to its everyday use. We highlight the discrepancies between the scientific and everyday meanings of the concepts “learning activity” and “learning task” and clarify the relationship between the structure of the learning task and the structure of the ability to learn. We also describe the characteristic actions of an adult at the stage of designing the learning task and then at the stage of interpsychological interaction with children when setting a learning task and searching for the means to solve it.

Conclusion. Children’s initiative in constructing general methods of action and sensitivity to conceptual contradictions manifest themselves systematically, as an age-related tendency, only when students set and solve learning tasks aimed at discovering and mastering theoretical concepts. Education that provides readymade answers to unasked questions minimizes the opportunity for students to become self-learning agents.

Practical application of the results. The identified discrepancies between the scientific and everyday meanings of the concepts “learning activity” and “learning task” can protect these fruitful concepts from profanation and save their creative potential.

Background. The problem of translating scientific articles into other languages affects not only translators but also psychologists, since the accuracy of translation determines the adequacy of understanding and transferring of scientific concepts.

Objectives. The article focuses on the critical discussion of different variants in translating some concepts of L.S. Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory into Portuguese.

Study Materials. This article discusses the concepts of the “zona blijaichego razvitia”, “learning”, and “speech”.

Results. The paper considers variations in the translations of L.S. Vygotsky’s concept of the cultural-historical theory into Portuguese. Insufficient attention of translators to the theoretical and methodological foundations of the original scientific text, which generates substantive errors in translation and distorts (simplifies) the content of the original approach, is critically discussed.

Conclusions. Both literary and scientific translation should be understood as an unfinished process that requires constant revision and improvement. The philosophical, ethical and historical ideas of the translated author should be the basis for this. Only in this case will translation contribute to the communication and connection of people speaking different languages.

Background. L.S. Vygotsky’s cultural-historical approach toward children’s psychological development was first developed around one hundred years ago. It now requires re-evaluation in light of new experimental studies that have shown complexity and diversity of the innate psychological abilities of new-borns and infants, as well as other theoretical approaches towards understanding the role of culture and learning in cognitive development. Such a re-evaluation aims to draw our attention to those aspects of human psychology that L.S. Vygotsky, due to the limited empirical knowledge available to him and his early death, was unable or did not have time to illuminate.

Objectives. The aim is to consider L.S. Vygotsky’s concept of natural psychological functions in a new perspective, as a forerunner of the ‘heart’ of human psychology — the living consciousness.

Methods. The research method is a comparative and logical analysis of concepts, illustrated by the results of the author’s and his colleagues’ long-term experimental research.

Results. A distinction between living consciousness, which includes subjective experiences (for example, perceptions, emotions, and creative thinking) and functions according to the laws of magic, and objectified consciousness, into which living consciousness is transformed for consumption by society and culture (for example, scientific concepts, logical thinking, and human artifacts) and which conforms to the laws of nature and formal logic, is proposed. It has been hypothesized that both living consciousness and higher mental functions are genetically related to natural mental functions. Differences between the structure, functions and methods of studying living and objectified consciousness are considered.

Conclusions. Natural mental functions are the psychological basis for two relatively independent but interconnected branches of mental development: living consciousness and higher mental functions. Living consciousness does not obey the laws of formal logic and is the primary source of creative ideas and truly selfless morality.

Background. The study of L.S. Vygotsky’s scientific heritage enables the clarification of the theoretical basis for the role of the social environment in children’s mental development and the key regularities of children’s mental development at varying ages and stages of development in the context of transitivity and the social uncertainty of modern society.

Objectives. The currently article analyses the significance of the social situation of development as an alternative to the understanding of the environment as a factor of development in L.S. Vygotsky’s doctrine of the structure and dynamics of psychological age.

Results. Experience is the indivisible “unit” of the social situation of development as a dynamic unity of personality and environment in the form of age-specific attitude. The experience acts as an integration of affective and intellectual components and acquires features of awareness and meaningfulness as the child’s thinking develops. The social environment contains ideal forms as a standard of historically developed human properties and abilities, determining the greatest originality of the child’s developmental path — the future is already represented in the present and sets the vector for development. The ideal form embodies the age-specific normative content of the developmental potential of higher mental functions at each age stage, being appropriated in the course of cooperation. Experience determines the individual trajectory and the result of development. A comparative analysis of the crises of three and seven years convincingly proves the change in the type of experience: from the child’s singling out of relations and himself as the subject of these relations to the singling out of experiences, their differentiation and realisation of the attitude to Self. The social situation of development determines the boundaries for the zone of the child’s proximal development (ZPD).

Conclusions. Experience realises the child’s active position in relation to the world through the prism of age characteristics. Transformation of the social situation of development, according to L.S. Vygotsky, occurs in the form of changes in the types and methods of experiencing in connection with the development of the motivation and need during the period of age-related developmental crises.

Background. The cultural-historical theory of the development of higher mental functions by L.S. Vygotsky remains relevant and continues to be discussed by specialists from various countries. Its usefulness is largely due to its employment of the dialectical method, the analysis of which is the focus of this article.

Objectives. The aim is to reveal the essence of the dialectical method which allowed L.S. Vygotsky to analyse mental development processes. The first task was to define units of analysis as well as to describe their role when applied to a method. The second task was to show two types of analysis: substantive and structural.

Methods. The dialectical method of analysis was applied in the process of solving theoretical problems. The current article systematically raises questions about the characteristics of the method, the requirements for units of analysis and their properties. Several difficulties with analysing units were summarized.

Results. Dialectical analysis as a method of cognition, as applied by L.S. Vygotsky, was based on an invariant structural representation of the processes of mental development. At the same time, the task of meaningful interpretation of the development of the child’s psyche remained. The solution to this problem was based on the search for units of content analysis that simultaneously had two possibilities: to be invariant to any content and to be included into any content. An analysis of the works of L.S. Vygotsky showed that he considered the relations of opposition as such units.

Conclusions. The use of dialectical analysis by L.S. Vygotsky was associated with the consideration of the studied material on two levels: structural and substantive, as well as in transitions from one level to another. To make such transitions, L.S. Vygotsky identified opposites in the content that interested him. Opposites had both substantive properties and represented formal invariant units independent of specific content, which made it possible to carry out transformations at the invariant (structural) level before returning to the substantive level. As soon as the content of the problem under study was transmitted into a structural plan, it was subjected to dialectical transformations, through the sequential implementation of various operations using opposites. These operations corresponded to the elementary dialectical structures, characteristic of both mental transformations and the processes of various entities in development. Content analysis, which included operating with opposites, allowed L.S. Vygotsky to describe the processes of development of complex structural systems of human consciousness.

Background. The relevance of the stated topic is determined by two circumstances: the need to determine the main directions of the theoretical and methodological reflection of modern social psychology and the task of explaining the socio-psychological aspects of cultural-historical theory.

Objective. Consideration of the relationship between the main ideas of the cultural-historical theory of L.S. Vygotsky and the subject field of social psychology.

Methods. The article uses methods of deductive (axiomatic and hypothetico-deductive) and comparative analyses.

Results. The main theses of cultural-historical theory set the development and instantiation of the subject field of social psychology, starting with the well-known discussions of the 1920s. The main provisions can be identified as follows: the idea of the internalisation of social relations as a constructive mechanism of human socialisation; understanding the process of communication as instrumentally mediated by a system of signs which act as a means for a social subject to master his social behaviour; approval of the idea of human activity in interaction, the finite task of which is the formation of a common system of meanings. Using the example of similarities and differences in the historical views of L.S. Vygotsky and J.G. Mead, the authors analyse the possible range of understandings of interaction contextuality. It was the attention of cultural-historical theory to the analysis of interaction that largely determined the further interest of social psychology in the problem of “personality and/or situation”, the solution to which is still debatable.

Conclusions. The determining role of L.S. Vygotsky’s position for universal social psychology as well as for Russian is associated with the unremitting attention of researchers to one of the fundamental problems in the analysis of man and society, namely, to the problem of human interaction with the surrounding socio-cultural environment. The requirement to consider the social context as a methodological imperative of modern social psychology sets the main direction for the further development of theoretical and methodological reflection. This main direction is the analysis of possible relationships between the social context and social changes, leading to the need for empirical development of two problems: the individual psychological foundations of social choice and a person’s ability to resist the power of the situation.

Background. A number of well-known and leading theories of psychotherapy developed in the works of S. Freud, A. Adler, K. Jung, E. Fromm, K. Rogers, and V. Frankl unites a common theoretical provision that the most important prerequisites for many problems of psychotherapy clients who seek for help from a psychologist are the characteristics of their personality. However, all these authors lack a common understanding of what these personal prerequisites are, as well as they lack a common understanding of the purpose of psychotherapy.

Objectives. In this first of the four articles planned for publication, based on the works of E. Fromm, we are going to formulate the basic theoretical provisions that constitute the basis for integrative approach to understanding the personal prerequisites of the problems of clients of psychotherapy and its purpose. This would allow us to consider the different points of view on these issues of all these authors from a unified, common position.

Results. The analysis of the theory of humanistic psychoanalysis by E. Fromm made it possible to identify its main provisions characterizing human nature, productive and unproductive personality.

Conclusions. Based on these results, we have formulated three basic theoretical positions that form the basis of an integrative approach to understanding the personal prerequisites of the problems in psychotherapy and its purpose. The first of them characterizes the objective property of human life inherent in its very nature; the second refers to the typical personal prerequisites for the problems of clients of psychotherapy; the third describes the purpose of psychotherapy. In the next three publications, it will be shown that different ideas about the personal prerequisites of the problems of clients in psychotherapy and its purpose contained in the psychotherapeutic theories of Z. Freud, A. Adler, K. Jung, K. Rogers, and V. Frankl allow for considering them from a unified, common position set by these three basic provisions.

Background. The relevance of the study is due to the need for investigating the professional development of senior schoolchildren and students under the conditions of increasing influence of stress factors.

Objectives. The study set the purpose to review and analyze modern scientific ideas on the problem of psychological resources of professional self-determination in students under stress.

Methods. Search for and analysis of recent theoretical and empirical research publications was carried out. Abstraction, and generalization of obtained data relevant to the topic of the article were applied. Methods also included identification of theoretical foundations and promising directions for research into the problem of psychological resources of professional self-determination of students under stress.

Results. Analysis of the recent publications allowed to reveal conceptual differences in understanding the phenomenon of professional self-determination of the individual. It identified a variety of approaches to the study of human professional behaviour. The authors highlighted and characterized the main directions of modern research on the topic discussed, indicating the demand for studying human professional behaviour in the changing conditions of life. The study systematized theoretical foundations and empirical data on the psychological resources for students’ professional self-determination and for overcoming life stress.

Conclusions. The study revealed the potential of a resource-based approach to the study of the stress influence on the professional self-determination of students and substantiated the role of conscious self-regulation resources in choosing and mastering a profession.

Background. The phenomenon of revenge has been widely studied in psychology since the beginning of the 20th century. Acts of revenge are considered in psychoanalysis, social, family, criminal, legal and other areas of psychology. Nowadays behaviour based on the motive of revenge is found in virtual environment. There is an ambivalent attitude towards revenge. On the one hand, a person who does not get revenge seems weak. On the other hand, seeking for revenge can be perceived as an unconstructive way of behaving. Despite the prevalence of revenge, there is no generally accepted opinion in psychological science regarding the definition of revenge.

Objectives. The aim of this work is to analyze various ideas about revenge and to highlight the components of vengeful behaviour, based on which the form of reciprocal aggression can be classified as revenge. The problem of distinguishing between the concepts of “revenge”, “retribution”, “resentment” and “punishment” is considered.

Results. Revenge has a significant difference from other forms of aggressive behaviour. Revenge is always a reaction to previous aggression. The motivational component includes two aspects: the desire to take revenge (revenge seeking) and he desire to maintain a comfortable level of self-esteem. Society has a dual function in relation to revenge: as an initial motive influencing the choice of response to resentment, and as a deterrent factor. The willingness to forgive is determined by moral development, a number of personal characteristics and changes in the motivational sphere.

Conclusions. In psychological science, the phenomenon of revenge is subjected to a thorough theoretical analysis. Due to the fact that revenge is an intrapersonal phenomenon, the development of methodological tools, including psychodiagnostic techniques, is necessary for the development of revenge research.

Background. Postcovid syndrome or Long COVID is a new term introduced into medical practice by WHO after the COVID -19 pandemic. Long COVID affects patients who have recovered from COVID -19.

Objectives. The purpose of this work is to understand cognitive deficits caused by COVID-19 from the point of view of neuropsychology and pathophysiology.

Data Sources. Literature search was conducted in the following electronic databases: Pubmed, Google.scholar and Scopus databases. 63 articles were selected. Keywords for the literature review included “neuropsychiatry/neuropsychology”, “pathophysiology”, “COVID-19”, “SARS-CoV-2”.

Methods. Review and analysis of COVID-19 studies in terms of its relation to the appearance of cognitive deficits in patients.

Results. The SARS-CoV-2 virus enters the human body and affects the structures of the brain. Some of the symptoms such as fatigue, shortness of breath, problems with concentration and memory, loss or change of taste and smell, pain in muscles and joints as well as sleep disorders are preserved in post-COVID period and may be explained by the peculiarity of the virus interaction with central nervous system. Neuropsychological analysis of observed disorders based on the theory of three functional blocks of the brain by A. R. Luria helps to identify the affected zones of the functional systems of higher mental functions (HMF). Neuropsychological assessment makes it possible to plan rehabilitation programme or cognitive training, and help doctor in choosing an adequate drug therapy to compensate for cognitive impairment.

Conclusions. SARS-CoV-2 causes damage to brain structures such as the brainstem, limbic system, prefrontal cortex and olfactory tract, which explains the observed symptoms. Neuropsychological diagnostics makes it possible to identify the impaired component of the HMF in patients with post-COVID syndrome, to plan an adequate rehabilitation programme, as well as to choose drug therapy.

Background. The relevance of gender issues is associated with discussions outside the scientific field, while in the science itself, the popularity of gender studies is increasing every year.

Objectives. The present article aims at the application of the conceptual mechanism of the cultural-historical approach to gender issues.

Methods. Abstraction, analysis and synthesis of literary data, comparison of theoretical models, and generalization were used.

Results. Sex as a biological entity is divided into an innate “natural” category and a gender as a culturological one. A number of examples demonstrate the non-identity of sex and gender as well as variants of their combination and interaction. It is proposed to disidentify gender and gender identity as a psychological category. The latter is understood as an analogue of the higher mental function which forms intravitally under specific social conditions, it is mediated by gender signs (appearance, manners, norms, preferences, values, taboos, etc.) and is possible to self-regulate. In the meantime, the limitations in mastering one’s own behaviour are emphasized, since the origin of the gender identity is connected to the biological parameters of sex, inconsistency of gender norms and their wide field of influence. Here the field of cultural pathology in the sphere of gender identity and intersex interaction reveals itself.

Conclusions. The cultural-historical approach is seen to be heuristic in the multifactorial understanding of gender issues which include biological, cultural, psychological, and ontogenetic aspects.

Editorial Board of the scientific journal "Bulletin of Moscow University. Series 14. Psychology" expresses its gratitude to all expert reviewers who assisted in the analysis, evaluation and selection of the publication of manuscripts received in 2020.

Relevance. Professional reliability is a complex multidimensional construct that is used to predict the professional success of specialists working in extreme conditions. Such forecasting is possible in large-scale studies using complex multi-stage modeling, but the forecast will be abstract, not applicable to individual cases. An alternative is to predict certain aspects of success. At the same time, the components of “personal reliability” have the greatest predictive value, since with the development of civilization and changes in the “man-machine” relationship, the internal content of professional reliability shifted from a predominantly functional component to motivational, moral and socio-psychological, including the phenomenon of self-regulation. 

The purpose of the research is to study the components of personal reliability as possible predictors of certain aspects of professional success of rescuers. 

Sample:31 specialists (men), rescuers of one of the Subdivision Ministry of Emergency Situations AQUASPASS, aged 24 to 45 years. 

Research methods: expert assessment of professional success; self-assessment of the level of professionalism; case method; test questionnaire A.V. Zverkova and E.V. Eydman “Research of volitional self-regulation”; “11 personality factors”; test “Motivational Profile” by Ritchie S., Martin P.; Rosenzweig frustration test; “Express methodology” for studying the social and psychological climate in a team (OS Mikhalyuk and A.Yu. Shalyto); diagnostics of the attractiveness of labor (V.M. Snetkov). 

Conclusions (briefly): a) it is possible to use the indicator of success in a training situation as a predictor of professional success; b) the influence of each of the components of personal reliability on different aspects of professional success is differentiated, therefore, forecasting is more optimal also in differentiated options; c) the effectiveness of socio-psychological interaction makes an important contribution to professional success, and the components of the socio-psychological climate play different roles in this. 

Acknowledgments: The study was carried out with funding from grant 19-013-00799 A “Predictive model of adaptability and reliability of professionals in extreme working conditions”.

Relevance. Timely comprehensive diagnostics of psycho-social factors involved in the formation of cerebral palsy in children, their influence on the formation of child-parent relationships is relevant and practically significant. Inharmonious upbringing, emotional disorders and personal characteristics of the parent can affect the child's mental development, contribute to violations of psycho-social adaptation. 

Objective of the study: to reveal the psychological characteristics of children with cerebral palsy and those of their mothers, to determine the characteristics of upbringing and parent-child relationships, to conduct clinical and psychological support of children with this disabling disease and their parents with elements of cognitive-behavioral correction of the identified disorders. 

Methods of research. Clinical conversation and experimental psychological method including: “Assembling Figures” method according to the 4th Wechsler subtest; method of drawing associations by S. Rosenzweig (children's version) modified by N.V. Tarabrina(1978); René Gilles method, 1950; test “SMOL” ( V.P. Zaitsev, 1981); “PARI” method by E.S. Schaefer and R.K. Bell, adapted by T. V. Neshcheret (1984). Methods of statistical analysis were used as well. 

The sample consisted of: Group1 (n1) – 37 pre-school children with cerebral palsy aged 5–6 years (17 girls and 20 boys) and their mothers in the MCU of Samara RC “Zhuravushka”; Group 2 (n2) – 37 conditionally healthy children of the same age and gender in the SBU SAMARA city children's polyclinic No. 9. 

Research results. It was found that in children with cerebral palsy, emotional response in a situation of frustration is accompanied by high self-accusatory reactions, low socio-psychological adaptation and low self-esteem. Child-parent relationships are in the suboptimal emotional range. An effective program of clinical and psychological cognitive-behavioral psychological correction of emotional and behavioral cerebral palsy disorders in the parent-child group was carried out. 

Conclusions. Psychosocial factors affecting the adaptation processes of preschool children with cerebral palsy were identified. Families with children with chronic disabling diseases such as cerebral palsy, need to organize training and education, including psycho-corrective and correction-developmental classes. 

Relevance. Categorization, being one of the main cognitive processes, is involved in the perception and comprehension of objects with meaning, depending on the personal significance. Exceptional subjectivity of bodily experience makes it important to explore its structuring and mediating with sign through the analysis of bodily sensations categorisation in patients with complaints of pathological bodily sensations. 

Objective: description of specific characteristic features of categorization of bodily sensations in patients with excoriation disorder with impulsive actions.

Methods and Sample. 15 patients with excoriation disorder with impulsive actions (mean age 47±17 years) and 50 patients with depression with somatic symptoms (mean age 42±13 years) took part in the study. They were asked to perform psychosemantic test “Choice of intraceptive sensations descriptors” for describing all bodily sensations and health-related bodily sensations. 

Results. Patients with excoriation disorder with impulsive actions, when categorizing all bodily sensations and health-related bodily sensations, chose descriptors of actions with the skin and descriptors of negative emotional states. Significant differences were found in the choice of descriptors of emotional states. Their number was less in patients with excoriation disorder with impulsive actions in comparison with patients with depression with somatic symptoms who demonstrated a variety of choices of descriptors of different classes in response to both instructions of the test.

Conclusion. Bodily sensations categorisation study allowed to discuss the features of bodily experience in general and health-related bodily experience. In excoriation disorder with impulsive actions the bodily sensations categorisation was characterized by an attribution of actions with skin and emotions to bodily experience. The characteristics of bodily sensations choices in patients from different groups allowed to associate features of bodily sensations categorisation with clinical symptoms of these mental disorders.