Treatment of avoidance behavior as an adjunct to exposure therapy: Insights from modern learning theory
Open accessAbstract
Pathological avoidance of benign stimuli is a hallmark of anxiety and related disorders, and exposure-based treatments have often encouraged the removal of avoidance, or safety behaviors, due to their negative effects on extinction learning. Unfortunately, empirical evidence suggests that avoidance behaviors can persist following treatment, and the mere availability of avoidance behavior can be sufficient to renew fear following successful extinction learning. The present paper critically examines the function of avoidance behavior through the lens of modern learning theory, and speculates on novel behavioral and pharmacological strategies for targeting avoidance as an adjunct to current evidence-based treatments.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The implicit assumption that decreasing Pavlovian fear responses will naturally lead to decreased avoidance and enhanced life functioning, and that relapse of fear will invariably lead to clinical relapse, is not supported by the literature.
“This reveals the implicit assumption that decreasing Pavlovian fear responses will naturally lead to decreased avoidance and enhanced life functioning, and relapse of fear will invariably lead to clinical relapse. However, this assumption is not supported by the literature.”
From Relapse of anxiety-related fear and avoidance: Conceptual analysis of treatment with acceptance and commitment therapy (2020) · cites this paper as Treanor & Barry, 2017
Decreases in Pavlovian fear responses do not consistently lead to decreases in avoidance or to more engagement in important areas of life.
“Decreases in Pavlovian fear responses do not consistently lead to decreases in avoidance (Treanor & Barry, 2017) or to more engagement in important areas of life (Gloster et al., 2017).”
From Relapse of anxiety-related fear and avoidance: Conceptual analysis of treatment with acceptance and commitment therapy (2020) · cites this paper as Treanor & Barry, 2017
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 59 · Cited by 65
- Authors
- Treanor, M., & Barry, T. J.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Los Angeles (US)
- King's College London (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Treanor, Michael
- ORCID
- Barry, Tom J.
- Venue
- Behaviour Research and Therapy
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2017-09
- Volume
- 96
- Pages
- 30-36
- ISSN
- 0005-7967 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2606040035
- Cited by
- 65
- References
- 59
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 5
- FWCI
- 1.04
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Licence
- cc-by-nc-nd
- www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/ (tdm)
- Locations
- Behaviour Research and Therapy (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- The HKU Scholars Hub (University of Hong Kong) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Behavioral and Psychological Studies
- Keywords
- avoidance behavior, exposure therapy, safety behavior, extinction learning, fear renewal, anxiety disorders, adjunctive therapy, pharmacological strategies, behavioral strategies
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Anxiety Disorders, Avoidance Learning, Combined Modality Therapy, Humans, Implosive Therapy, Learning, Psychological Theory, Anti-Anxiety Agents
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
