Ontological view: suicidal behavior and the phenomenon of resilience

The article overviews the latest researches in Russian and Western schools of psychiatry and clinical psychology investigating the psychological resources of a person in an extreme situation of the existential crisis - when he is willing to commit suicide. The psychological recourses preventing a person from this crucial step are seen through the notion of “hardiness/resilience”. The authors review the development of hardiness/resilience notion and its particularities as it is adopted in suicidology. The deficiency of hardiness / resilience qualities may take its source in congenital qualities of a person, in a defect of its protective/coping mechanisms and in its incapacity to reappraisal. The article lists the number of methods for hardiness/resilience evaluation and the strategies of psychological work directed to intensification of Its qualities.