The ability to predict events is a vital skill that develops throughout life. Anticipation is also developed at a certain level in animals. So, when a swallow hunts a midge, it flies not to the point where the midge is now, but to the point where it will be in a few seconds. In these seconds, the most complex computational processes take place in the swallow’s brain - past experience is compared with the current situation (wind speed and direction, midge speed, etc.), and based on the data obtained, the speed and flight path are selected, and control signals are sent to the body. No superpowers – just good brain function and an obedient, controlled body. The human brain is more developed and is able to predict situations many times more complex than “where the midge will be in a second.” Just as a basketball player trains in the accuracy of his shots, the brain of a mentally healthy person constantly improves in the accuracy of making predictions. The processes of forecasting and comparison of the actual situation with the predicted one constantly occur in it. Forecasting helps prepare for future events, and comparing forecasts with the actual situation helps to make adjustments to forecasting activities. In everything that a person does (cooks, designs, launches production or plays a game), he needs the ability to foresee the result of his actions and possible external circumstances (weather conditions, actions of other people, upcoming elections, etc.). In psychology, the ability to act and make decisions in anticipation of future events is called anticipation. Components of anticipatory activity: Probabilistic impartial forecasting. Thus, a chess player calculates the game several moves ahead. Emotionally colored, motivationally reinforced (desired - unwanted) expectation of certain events. The chess player wants to win and does everything to achieve the desired result. For him, victory is a positively colored, desirable event; defeat is an undesirable, negatively colored event. Any unexpected change in the situation leads to stress. The greater the discrepancy between the expected situation and what actually happened, the more pathogenic the consequences for the psyche can be. Unforeseen events keep a person in suspense until a decision is made on “what to do next.” As long as a person is tense, there remains a risk of psychological trauma. Decision making is an energy-consuming, resource-squeezing process. A situation predicted in advance (positive or negative) facilitates adaptation processes, because the person was prepared in advance for the situation and approximately knows what to do. Numerous observations, as well as studies of the anticipation mechanism of healthy people and people with neurotic disorders confirm the connection between the violation of predictive abilities and the occurrence of the mentioned disorders. A person prone to neurotic disorders excludes from his predictive activity undesirable events and focuses only on desirable ones. For such people, undesirable situations are forced out of the “future scenario.” Finding himself in an unfavorable situation, a person may not use his potential for coping, even if his psychological compensation system works normally, and develop neurosis. It is also noted that people who tend to find themselves in the same type of stressful situations do not take into account past experience: the 5th betrayal of their spouse will be as unexpected for them as the first. They, just like the first time, “couldn’t even imagine that he would do this.” The attitudes “you don’t need to think about that,” “peck your tongue,” “cawed at you” refer to negative social patterns, because do not allow a person to prepare for undesirable events. Reduces anticipatory abilities and the habit of shifting responsibility for one’s life and one’s future to horoscopes, numerology, fortune telling, etc. – a person does not predict and.