Background. The address to facilitating practice means granting to the person of a possibility of constructing individual sense and searching for such instruments of work by the consultant which allow the clients “to go and keep the relations with others”. The issue of searching for psychotechnical means adequate to correspondent ones, and to dialogue relations, turns us to humour and one of its forms, i.e. a joke. 

Objective. Guided by the cultural and historical concept and narrative approach in psychology and also by the ideas of systematic and stage-by-stage action development we are to prove joke as a tool of narrative understanding of the interpersonal relations. 

Design. The concept of ‘interpersonal relationship’ is clarified. The features of the ‘understanding interpersonal relations’ are specified. A review of ‘laughing’ as behaviour leading to an understanding of interpersonal relations, and a joke as a psycho-technical tool mediating the therapeutic relationship between a client and a consultant, is conducted. 

Results. ‘Understanding interpersonal relationships’ is coined as highlighting a method (scheme) that leads to a judgment about the developing relationship. Humor is considered as an attitude and understanding (orientation) in interpersonal communication whose purpose occurs through a sign-symbolic construction, i.e. a joke. Considering joke in the focus of the narrative approach provides an opportunity to see additional features of it as a tool, which can be included in the outline of the indicative basis of a communicative process. 

Conclusions. Using joke in advisory interaction as psychotechnical tool allows us to make certain statements, or to call for certain behaviour from the equality position without limiting individual freedom of the person. Due to joking the consultant’s intensions, interests, valuable and semantic orientations are getting more transparent and, the client’s judgments and behavior can be corrected easily.

The paper is devoted to the concept of narrative in social psychology. The problem of lack of unity in the understanding and application of this concept in the research methods is discussed. The goal is to systemize the approaches to narrative from the perspective of the identity research. Narrative is a concept that is beginning to be widely used in the study of personality, self-perception, communication, and the study of various social practices; that is why it is necessary to determine which properties of narrative can be applied to the study of identity. The paper performs a review of four most common approaches to the narrative: narrative as a particular mode of thought (J. Bruner), narrative as a metatheoretical paradigm (T. Sarbin), narrative as a life story, narrative as one of discourse genres. The features of the narrative in each approach, as well as the main problems of research are analized. Two criteria of the narrative are discussed: specific temporal structure and transformation criterion. The following features of the concept of narrative in psychology are focused upon: discursive understanding of narrative, the importance of incorporating interactional and cultural contexts within the study of narrative, functional approach to the definition of the narrative. We discuss the potential of the narrative as a psychological construct in the study of identity and define two promising approaches to the narrative: the analysis of separate life events (e.g. turning points and complex actions) and the analysis of narration as a discursive practice and an interactional process which is sensitive to local context and to wider social practices.

In the modern world a dominant role in everyday life is played by such media channels as television, video resources and the Internet. Perception of the world is reverberated by the more indirect images of this world, whereas visuality is the formative principle of visual culture. «The «visual turn» consists in the shift of modern methods of verbal perception toward visual, or image ones.

Images are the components of the mental architecture. Image sensitivity replaces the text and sometimes it complements the text. Topical issues of visualization require modernised research methods of media images, which must be included in the broader context of interdisciplinary research.

The Internet space acquires an independent meaning, it carries a growing set of social interactions and contacts. With the development of the Internet business, the linear narratives are replaced by hypertextual and visual ones. The Internet can be viewed in “the postmodern situation» as a setting of global automation, and also as endless polyphonic communication of independent segments once a common cultural and information space. The most active Internet audience is presented by young people. Within them the formation of various subcultures and communities is inherent, there is a new system for structuring culture.

In the modern consumer society, along with other advertising media, products are increasingly becoming a source of visual differentiation and entertainment. The visual impact of online advertising is determined by the fact that it represents the lifestyle and values of the youth subculture, constructs a new perception and develops a new structure of consciousness and vision of the world of young people.