In this Perspective, we suggest that fruitful use of Pavlovian fear conditioning as a laboratory model of clinical anxiety requires moving beyond the study of fear acquisition to associated fear conditioning phenomena: fear extinction, generalization of conditioned fear and fearful avoidance. Pavlovian fear conditioning has been the prime research instrument that has led to substantial progress in understanding the multi-faceted psychological and neurobiological mechanisms of fear in past decades. However, fear becomes maladaptive and can give rise to the development of clinical anxiety when it exceeds the degree of threat, generalizes broadly across stimuli and contexts, persists after the danger is gone or promotes excessive avoidance behaviour. Fear is an adaptive emotion that mobilizes defensive resources upon confrontation with danger.
