Inhibitory Learning in ERP: A Powerful Approach to Overcoming Anxiety and OCD
When we think about overcoming anxiety disorders, most people imagine it’s about “unlearning fear.” For years, that’s how exposure therapy was explained: face your fears enough times, and eventually the fear fades. But research now shows it’s not about erasing fear—it’s about building new learning that competes with the old fear. This is called inhibitory learning.
What Is Inhibitory Learning?
Inhibitory learning is at the heart of modern Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) and other evidence-based treatments for anxiety. Instead of trying to make fear vanish, the goal is to help people discover that fear can exist without the terrible outcomes they expect—and that they can handle uncertainty and discomfort.
Over time, this new learning “inhibits” or quiets the old fear responses, giving people more flexibility and freedom. It’s not about deleting the old pathway, but about creating a new, stronger one that says: “I can handle this.”
When I work with clients doing ERP, I continually return to the concept of inhibitory learning to shift the focus. So often, people get stuck on the idea that if they still feel anxious, they’ve somehow failed at treatment. Inhibitory learning challenges that belief. Instead, the focus becomes:
“I did it even though I felt anxious.”
I can’t promise clients a life free from anxiety. Anxiety is a normal and often unavoidable part of being human. But what ERP and inhibitory learning can do is help people build mastery and confidence in their ability to sit with discomfort. Ironically, as they stop measuring progress by “how anxious did I feel?” and instead measure progress by “what did I do despite anxiety?” they often experience less anxiety and fewer intrusive obsessions over time.
Let’s say you have a fear of driving over bridges. One day, as part of treatment, I encourage you to drive over a bridge despite your fear. If you only focus on the fact that you felt extremely anxious while driving, you might conclude that you “failed” the exposure. But inhibitory learning reframes the experience:
Yes, you felt anxious.
And you still drove over the bridge.
And nothing catastrophic happened.
This helps retrain the brain to see that anxiety is not the measure of success—action is. Over time, this builds confidence and mastery. You learn (and your brain learns) that you can tolerate anxiety and discomfort, and that you don’t need certainty to move forward.
Inhibitory learning frees people from the trap of believing that they must eliminate anxiety to live a full life. Instead, it emphasizes:
Tolerating discomfort
Disconfirming feared predictions (seeing that what you worried would happen didn’t happen)
Building flexibility in how you respond to intrusive thoughts or fears
This shift in perspective allows people not just to reduce anxiety, but to build resilience and confidence—skills that extend far beyond the therapy room.
Anxiety is part of being human, but it doesn’t have to define your life. By shifting the focus from “I must not feel anxious” to “I can do this even when I feel anxious,” you build freedom, resilience, and a sense of possibility that goes far beyond OCD or anxiety treatment.
By Andrea Born-Horowitz, LCSW
