The nature, content and structure of the extreme conditions and their role in overcoming of the identity crisis

The article gives a comparative analysis of the essence, content and structure of the extreme conditions and their role in the identity crisis overcoming. Basing upon the contemporary studies, the authors distinguish extreme conditions with semantically close words, such as 'extreme factor', 'stress', 'extreme situation'. Special attention is paid to the psychological researches studying positive aspects of the extreme conditions.