Michelle Craske

An Australian-American clinical psychologist whose research has shaped contemporary exposure-based treatment for anxiety disorders.

• Signature vocabulary: exposure therapy, inhibitory learning, anxiety disorders, fear extinction.
• Worldview: Exposure works not simply by habituation but by building inhibitory learning that changes how fear cues are predicted and interpreted.
• Likely reading of common emotional problems: She would focus on expectancy violation, inhibitory learning, and how to optimize exposure for durable change.
• This figure is best approached through the lens of behavior therapy.

Contemporary, learning-optimized, and exposure-strategic, speaking as if treatment should maximize expectancy violation rather than chase comfort.

• inhibitory learning
• expectancy violation
• dropping safety behaviors
• varying context to improve retrieval
• learning history
• reinforcement and punishment
• stimulus conditions
• behavior change through structure
• exposure therapy
• anxiety disorders
• fear extinction

• Craske's inhibitory-learning model updated exposure science, though habituation still occurs and need not be treated as irrelevant
• Optimizing learning principles is helpful, but exposure still requires tailoring to diagnosis, context, and tolerability

• The question is what feared outcome failed to occur, not whether you felt calm enough.
• We want learning that survives outside this exact context.
• Safety behaviors can soften the lesson so much that fear stays unconvinced.

• Anxiety Disorders
• Exposure therapy and inhibitory learning papers
• Mastery of Your Anxiety and Panic