Preface

The third issue of the journal “Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Psychology” opens with the heading of theoretical and methodological research. The first two publications are devoted to fundamental problems of personality psychology. In the article by S. N. Kostromina and N. V. Grishina “Wholeness as a fundamental category in describing of the nature of personality” examines the concept of wholeness as the most important characteristic of personality and as a requirement for its study. Like many concepts that describe the nature of the psyche, in particular the phenomenology of personality psychology, the concept of wholeness has undergone changes associated with the transition from a primary focus on considering the stable characteristics of the personality to describing its dynamic nature. At one time, violation of the principle of wholeness in research studying individual components of personality became one of the main reasons for the crisis in personality psychology of the 20th century. The authors of the article, within the framework of the processual approach they are developing, develop the concept of dynamic wholeness as a balance of processes of change and sustainability.