"Psychological health of a person": essence and structure of the concept

Scientific literature has already accumulated a large body of knowledge about the role and significance of the psychological health of a person in individual and social life. However, the content of the structural components of this concept and the criteria for its evaluation still need clarification. The desire to shed the light on the gaps in knowledge about this phenomenon determined the purposes of the study: to clarify the content of the concept «psychological health of a person» and its structural components; to identify the specific features of psychological health preservation as a result of the interaction between the internal and external factors of psychosocial development. The ideas and principles of the system-activity approach, as well as foreign and Russian theories of psychological health, which reveal the essence, content and structure of the concept, as well as functions and specificity of this state dynamics served as a methodological and theoretical basis for analyzing the genesis, structure, and factors of preserving a person’s psychological health. The article presents the author’s definition of the concept «psychological health of a person» as a dynamic complex of the person’s men- tal properties that ensure harmony between the needs of the individual and society and are the prerequisite for the individual’s orientation toward the fulfillment of his vital task, self-actualization. The author clarifies the structural components of the psychological health phenomenon (axiological, instrumental, need-motivational) and the diagnosed evidences of them (self-esteem, social tolerance, sense of personal safety, stress-resistance, social adaptation, psychological adaptability, adoption of self-actualizing personality values, the need for selfactualization, active social contacts). The research results broaden the scientific understanding of the person’s psychological health indicators, form the theoretical basis for managing the processes of its preservation and strengthening.