A brief, accessible summary of the author’s modern ideas and theoretical views on the essence of personality, its structure, development mechanisms and relationships with the outside world.

Particular attention is paid to the inner world of the individual - its value-semantic sphere - and the mechanisms of personal maturity, autonomy and self-determination.

Psychology of freedom

“In concluding this article, we leave it open. Our task was limited to stating the problem and indicating the main guidelines for its more detailed development. We consider the most important shift in the perspective of considering human actions, the need for which is undoubtedly ripe. This was noticed three decades ago. “It is a mistake to assume that behavior must be the dependent variable in psychological research. For the person himself, this is an independent variable.”

Psychology of meaning

The monograph is devoted to a comprehensive theoretical analysis of semantic reality: aspects of the problem of meaning, the forms of its existence in human relations with the world, in human consciousness and activity, in the structure of personality, in interpersonal interaction, in artifacts of culture and art.

Modern psychology of motivation

A collection of works by scientists representing the scientific school of the Faculty of Psychology of Moscow State University, which are devoted to modern problems psychology of motivation. The articles in the collection contain theoretical reviews, theoretical-experimental and applied research based on new trends in the psychology of motivation and self-regulation that have emerged in the last two decades.

Thematic apperception test

The book represents the first domestic complete guide on working with one of the most complex and interesting psychodiagnostic techniques. It outlines the history of the development of TAT, provides theoretical justification, an overview of related methods, detailed instructions on working with the subject, a detailed interpretation scheme, description and analysis of a specific case.

Test of life's meaning orientations

Failure in a person’s search for the meaning of his life (existential frustration) and the resulting feeling of loss of meaning (existential vacuum) are the cause of a special class of mental illnesses - noogenic neuroses, which differ from the previously described types of neuroses.

The PIL test is an adapted version of the Purpose-in-Life Test (PIL) by James Crumbo and Leonard Maholik. The methodology was developed by the authors on the basis of Viktor Frankl’s theory of the pursuit of meaning and logotherapy and was aimed at empirically validating a number of ideas of this theory, in particular ideas about the existential vacuum and noogenic neuroses.

For professional psychologists - researchers and practitioners.

Leontyev Dmitry Alekseevich,Moscow

Doctor of Psychological Sciences, Professor.

Head of the International Laboratory of Positive Psychology, Personality and Motivation, Professor of the Faculty of Psychology Department social sciences National Research University Higher School of Economics. Member of the Academic Council of the National Research University Higher School of Economics.

Director of the publishing house and scientific and production company “Smysl” and the Institute of Existential Psychology and Life Creativity.

Member of professional organizations: Moscow Psychological Society (Deputy Chairman of the Council), Moscow Association of Humanistic Psychology, International Association of Empirical Aesthetics (IAEA), International Society Theoretical Psychology (ISTP), International Society for Cultural Research in Activity Theory (ISCRAT), International Society for the History of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences (CHEIRON), International Society for Research in Behavioral Development (ISSBD), International Society for Empirical Studies in Literature (IGEL).

Member of the editorial boards of professional publications: “Psychological Journal”, Journal des Viktor-Frankl-Instituts (Austria, Vienna), “Moscow Psychotherapeutic Journal”, “Cultural-Historical Psychology”, “Psychology. Journal of the Higher School of Economics.

Graduated from the Faculty of Psychology of Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosov in 1982.

In 1988 he defended his thesis on the topic “Structural organization of the semantic sphere of personality”, in 1999 - doctoral dissertation on the topic “Psychology of meaning”.

Scientific interests: YES. Leontyev is the author of the original concept of the psychology of meaning and the general psychological concept of personality; a leading representative of the existential approach in Russia, one of the consistent developers of the existential approach to understanding man and research within the framework of positive psychology. IN last years develops issues of non-therapeutic practice of psychological assistance, prevention and facilitation of personal development based on existential psychology.

Based on a biased and multilateral analysis of various psychological theories, as well as a broader view of the development of the social and human sciences, D.A. Leontyev substantiates and develops the idea of ​​personality as a unity of the possible and necessary, within the framework of which a person can, using reflexive consciousness, go beyond the boundaries of the necessary into the possible.

Founder of the Smysl publishing house and the Institute of Existential Psychology and Life Creativity.

YES. Leontyev is one of the most recognizable and published modern domestic psychologists in Russia and abroad, the author of numerous scientific and popular works on the problems of personality psychology, motivation, self-regulation, psychological examination, methodology of psychology and the provision of psychological assistance (more than 400), including books “Essay on the psychology of personality”, “Introduction to the psychology of art”, “Psychology of meaning”, “Thematic apperception test”, etc.

Since 1982 he has been teaching at the Faculty of Psychology of Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosov: at the department general psychology, since 2013 - at the Department of Personality Psychology; associate professor, professor.

In 2009-2012 Headed the Laboratory of Problems of Personality Development of Persons with Disabilities at Moscow State University of Psychology and Education.

Since 2011 he has been working at the National Research University Higher School of Economics.

Since 1994, member of the editorial board of the journal “Psychological Journal”, since 2004 - of the journal “Psychology. Journal of the Higher School of Economics”, since 2005 - the journal “Cultural-Historical Psychology”. In 2006-2013 - Managing editor of The Journal of Positive Psychology.

Awards:

• Laureate of the Viktor Frankl Foundation Prize in Vienna (Austria) for achievements in the field of meaning-oriented humanistic psychotherapy;
• Honorary Professor of the Perm State Institute of Arts and Culture.

Participation in the “Golden Psyche” competition

• “International scientific and practical conference “Personality in an era of change: mobilis in mobili””, December 17-18, 2018, Moscow (in the category “Event of the year in the life of the community”, 2018), participant
• “Life-Creative Lessons of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry”, master class (in the category “Master Class of the Year for Psychologists”, 2017), winner
• “The scientific heritage of A.A. Leontiev”, research project carried out under the grant of the Russian Humanitarian Scientific Foundation No. 15-06-10942a (in the nomination “Project of the Year in Psychological Science”, 2017), laureate
• “A.F. Lazursky (1874-1917). Personality theory: 100 years of oblivion and development”, a set of events dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the death of A.F. Lazursky: monograph, international conference, memorial plaque (in the category “Project of the Year in Psychological Science”, 2017), laureate
• , educational and educational program of additional education (in the nomination “Psychological Tool of the Year”, 2016), nominee
• “All-Russian conference with international participation “From the origins to the present” 130 years of the organization of the psychological society at Moscow University”, September 29 - October 1, 2015 (in the category “Event of the year in the life of the community”, 2015), winner
• “Causemetry in the study of psychological time and the life path of an individual: past, present, future”, international conference and printed publications dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the causometric approach (in the category “Project of the Year in Psychological Science”, 2008), winner
• "Living Classics", book series (in the category "Project of the Year in Psychological Science", 2003), nominee
• "TO. Levin "Dynamic psychology: selected works" (in the category "Best project in scientific psychology", 2001), nominee
• , (in the nomination “Best Project in Psychological Education”, 2001), laureate

Leontyev Dmitry Alekseevich
(1960)

Leontyev Dmitry Alekseevich - Russian psychologist, Doctor of Psychology, professor. Representative of the scientific dynasty of Russian psychologists: son of A. A. Leontiev, grandson of A. N. Leontiev.

Rethinking personality psychology proposed by D.A. Leontiev is an attempt to understand the level of human activity at which, in the words of L.S. Vygotsky, not only develops, but also builds itself. The main theses of the new, “possibility” theory of personality according to D.A. Leontiev:

1. Personality psychology covers a special group of phenomena that belong to the realm of the “possible”, and these phenomena are not generated by cause-and-effect patterns. These phenomena are not necessary, but they are not accidental either, i.e. are not purely probabilistic in nature.

2. A person only acts and functions as a person during some periods in his life, realizing his human potential, i.e. he can live either in the intervals of the “necessary” or in the intervals of the “possible”. In the 3rd edition of his book Psychology of Meaning, D.A. Leontyev presented in a generalized form the structure of regimes in which a person can live. These modes are placed on a scale from the completely determined person to the completely free, or “self-determined” person.

YES. Leontje: — “Man has everything that lower-organized animals have, thanks to which he can function on the “animal level”, without including his specific human manifestations. A person’s trajectory in the world is dotted, discontinuous, because segments of functioning at the human level are interspersed with segments of subhuman functioning.”.

3. Existence in human life in addition to the necessary, the sphere of the possible introduces into it the dimension of self-determination and autonomy.

Even “meanings”, “values” and “truths” in human life are not automatic, self-acting mechanisms; they influence a person’s life only through his self-determination in relation to them as a subject.

4. Throughout a person’s life, the degree of determination of the same psychological phenomena may change.

5. Self-determination of one’s life activity by a person, as the subject’s voluntary influence on the cause-and-effect patterns affecting this life activity, becomes possible through the use of reflexive consciousness.

6. The level of personal development determines the nature of the relationship between variables in the individual: at a lower level, the nature of the relationship between variables is more rigid and is deterministic in nature; for more high level development, some act in relation to others only as prerequisites, without defining them unambiguously. “Personal development itself proceeds in the direction from genetically determined universal structures to less universal structures that initially exist in the modality of the possible.”

7. “An empirical indicator of action in the field of the possible, and not the necessary, is an unprovoked departure from the framework set by the situation.”

This exit occurs as the personality develops, increasingly towards the choice of meaningful and variable opportunities, as opposed to unambiguous needs.

8. As the forms and mechanisms of human life and psychological processes become more complex and improved, their causes begin to be increasingly replaced by prerequisites, which, unlike causes, generate not necessary consequences, but possibilities, while their absence is an impossibility.

9. “Recognition of psychological reality and the significance of the category of the possible takes us from a clear and clearly structured world to a world where uncertainty reigns, and coping with its challenge is the key to adaptation and effective functioning.” Understanding the world in which a person finds himself as predetermined is an existential worldview.

10. The introduction of the category of the possible supplements the description of the interaction of a person as a subject with the world with an existential dimension, and in such an “extended” description a place is found for both an orientation towards certainty and an orientation towards uncertainty.

11. “Opportunities are never actually embodied themselves, this happens only through the activity of the subject, who perceives them as opportunities for himself, selects something from them and makes his “bet”, investing himself and his resources in the implementation of the chosen opportunity.” At the same time, they accept responsibility for realizing this opportunity and give an internal commitment to themselves to invest efforts to realize it. In this transition, a transformation occurs: possible - valuable (meaningful) - due - goal - action.

The “possibility” theory of personality proposes to consider people as being on the path to self-realization, the measure of which is people’s own steps taken in this direction, as well as the efforts made. However, self-realization here is not the realization of what is laid down by heredity or environment, but the path of free decisions and choices of the person himself, not determined by environment and heredity.

The mechanisms of a personality’s transition from a mode of determination to a mode of self-determination are certain psychotechnical actions or “existential psychotechniques” developed in different cultures, and meaningful, mainly by existential philosophy, existential psychology, as well as a dialogical approach to understanding a person and his life:

• A stop, a pause - between a stimulus and a reaction to enable and work reflexive consciousness, during which you can not react in a “natural” way, usual for yourself or the situation, but begin to build your own behavior.
• Look at yourself from the outside. The inclusion of reflective consciousness, and thoughtful comprehension and awareness of all options and alternatives leads to the ability to make any choice.
• The splitting of the sense of self, the awareness of the discrepancy in the fact that I am exactly like this. I as a person am what I choose to be, or what I make myself to be.
• Identification of alternativeness of any choices and search for non-obvious alternatives. The same applies to choices that have already been made, especially those that a person made without noticing it. A choice is not only what a person has yet to make, but what a person is actually already doing.
• Awareness of the price that has to be paid for each possible elections, i.e. — existential calculation.
• Awareness of responsibility and investing oneself in the chosen alternative.

Russian psychologist, Doctor of Psychology, Professor of the Faculty of Psychology at Moscow State University. M. V. Lomonosova, head of the laboratory of problems of personality development of persons with disabilities, Moscow City Psychological and Pedagogical University.

Representative of the scientific dynasty of Russian psychologists: son of A. A. Leontiev, grandson of A. N. Leontiev.

Director of the Institute of Existential Psychology and Life Creativity (Moscow). A specialist in the fields of personality psychology, motivation and meaning, theory and history of psychology, psychodiagnostics, psychology of art and advertising, psychological and comprehensive humanitarian expertise, as well as in the field of modern foreign psychology. Author of more than 400 publications. Winner of the Viktor Frankl Foundation Prize in Vienna (2004) for achievements in the field of meaning-oriented humanistic psychotherapy. Editor of many translated books by leading psychologists of the world. In recent years, he has been developing issues of non-therapeutic practice of psychological assistance, prevention and facilitation of personal development based on existential psychology.

Always in great shape, with beautiful smile, with kind eyes. He will always cheer you up and find something to say when, it would seem, there is nothing to say. This is exactly how Dmitry Leontyev appears in the eyes of millions - a wise psychologist and a talented writer.

Biography

Dmitry Leontyev was born on July 28, 1960 in Moscow. From childhood he was destined to become a psychologist, because his father and grandfather achieved stunning success in this field. Therefore, he had no doubt about where he should go after graduating from school.

At the age of 22, he already brilliantly graduated from the Moscow Humanitarian University. His achievements in this area did not end there; 6 years later he defended his Ph.D. thesis, and at the age of 29 he became a Doctor of Psychological Sciences.

After graduating from the university, the former student remained to work there as a teacher and scientist. He owns two laboratories in which he analyzes important human problems: what is the meaning of an individual’s existence, values, motivation for life creativity, and many others.

Dmitry Leontiev - writer from capital letters, a teacher who knows how to find an approach to every student, and simply a talented person. This is exactly how his work colleagues, friends and relatives are used to seeing him.

Career

The life of a talented writer can be divided into several important stages:

1. In 1990, he became head of the positive psychology laboratory.
2. By 2004, Dmitry Leontiev had already written more than 600 scientific articles, for which he received the title of laureate of the Viktor Frankl Foundation Prize.
3. From 2009 to 2012, he headed the laboratory for the study of individuals with disabilities.
4. In 2014 he became an Honorary Member of the Logotherapy Society.

Throughout his life, the scientist studied personality, which was a person with different abilities. He used a reflexive consciousness that periodically goes beyond the boundaries of what is permissible. In his articles, he points out that man is a passive creature, controlled by many factors. Rather, he is the subject of his own activity rather than an object.

In Moscow, many people know such an author as Dmitry Leontyev; the books of this man help a person develop, understand the value of life and the essence of his purpose. In total, we can highlight several of the most popular works of a modern psychologist.

"Bastion"

A small work by the author, presented on 42 pages. This is the first book that the author wrote in the romance-fantasy genre. The main character in it is a young girl with beautiful appearance and ambitions. When she enters the room, all the men begin to look after her and count the steps of this beautiful person. It’s as if everyone around her falls into a daze when they see her. But is the fate of a girl with a bright appearance so simple? What is happening in her soul, and what fate has life given her?

Mostly the readers of this work are women. After reading, they will certainly share their impressions of this book. Basically, the review is as follows: women like a bright plot that begins to captivate from the very beginning and contains intrigue until the end of the work, it reveals the most difficult human relationships, each paragraph carries its own meaning, there is no unnecessary “water” throughout the entire work. .

"Dew in Hell"

"Dew in Hell" is the first book in the author's history written in a fantastic style. The main character of this work is a young man who, it would seem, should be full of strength, but he no longer has the energy to exist, work and endure everything that life throws at him. All this torment leads to the fact that first a person is despised by the whole world, and then he begins to hate himself.

If you like science fiction, pay attention to the work written by Dmitry Leontyev - “Dew in Hell.” Reviews about this arbitrariness are mostly positive. They are left in equal parts by both male and female representatives. They note the sharpness of the plot, its “twisting”, vivid description of scenes and the impossibility of predicting the outcome of the plot.

"Escape to a Dream"

Dmitry Leontyev also practiced modern poetry for several years. The result of his creations was the work “Escape to a Dream.” The main meaning of it is that all people live in illusions throughout their lives, they do not appreciate the present and think that they live badly, but someday everything will get better. The heroine of this picture thought the same thing until she inherited a riddle.

Basically, readers claim that this is not just a work, but the real truth of life that can happen to every person.

Psychology is of great importance in our lives. After all, it is she who helps to study the state of the human soul, direct thoughts in the right direction, and avoid conflicts. Dmitry Leontiev plays an important role in this area. It was he who was able to get to the reader’s soul and helped him put everything in its place.