The object is a sense of the value of one's own life in adolescence; the goal is to reveal the structure, dynamics and predictors of the manifestation of a sense of value of students' own lives; methods – theoretical (analysis, systematization and generalization), empirical, mathematical and statistical methods of data processing; novelty – age and sex features of manifestation and grounds for experiencing a sense of value of students' own lives are revealed for the first time; variants of meaning systems, which are reproduced in an associative experiment and participate in determining the orientation of experiencing a sense of value of one's own life, have been established for the first time; components of the structure of experiencing a sense of value of one's own life – "power, status, wealth", "optimism", "health", "self-control, information, self-development", "close relationships, family, demand", "distance from people" – are discovered for the first time; a system of temporal (images of the future, positive past, hedonistic present), cognitive (basic beliefs in fairness, control, positivity of the SELF image), emotional (lack of signs of vegetation, emotional exhaustion, adventurism), motivational (lack of tendency to put your own life in a narrow framework, tendency to achieve perfection and invulnerability, need for a managing partner), behavioral (engagement, coping strategies "finding social support", "avoiding", "emotion", "solving problems") and existential (self-styling) predictors that determine the type of experience of feeling the value of students' own lives ("rapprochement" or "distancing") is established for the first time; a set of methods for psychodiagnostics of the structure of the sense of value of one's own life is refined (author's questionnaire of components of sense of value of students' own lives is developed and standardized); age-specific features of the manifestation of predictors of the sense of students' own lives are refined; the psychological construct "types of experiencing the sense of students' own lives ("rapprochement" and "distancing")" is refined; understanding of the criteria of nonoptimality of experiencing a sense of value of students' own lives is expanded; understanding of ways to optimize the sense of value of students' own lives (reorientation from distancing to rapprochement with other people) is expanded; the means of psychological support of the process of strengthening the sense of value of students' own lives through socio-psychological training are received further development; results – a psychodiagnostic complex for studying the sense of value of one's own life has been developed; regression models for predicting the type of experience of a sense of value of students' own lives have been built; a psychological and pedagogical support program for optimization the experience of the value of one's own life due to the developing influence on the cognitive, emotional-will, motivational and semantic sphere of the student's personality has been developed. The provisions and results of the work can be used in the training and professional development of practical psychologists. The results of the dissertation study have been introduced into the educational process of higher educational institutions of Ukraine; area – psychology.
