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CHAPTER 1 8 INTRODUCTION We take precautions against feared outcomes on a daily basis. Examples are wearing a seatbelt to increase our chance of surviving a potential accident or thoroughly cleaning our hands after preparing chicken to prevent salmonella poisoning. Such protective actions aimed at preventing or minimizing feared catastrophes are called safety behaviors. They are logical and predominantly functional responses to perceived threats. In the absence of actual threat, however, safety behaviors are nonfunctional. Superstitions, such as knocking on wood and not walking under ladders to ward off bad luck, are common nonfunctional safety behaviors. They are generally not problematic, because superstitious behaviors are often of little or no cost to the individual (i.e., they take little time and energy to perform). However, when safety behaviors are performed in response to the excessive threat beliefs that are hallmark to pathological anxiety, they are considered ubiquitously deleterious and dysfunctional. Examples are always carrying safety aids, such as a mobile phone, when leaving the house in panic disorder, and avoiding eye contact in social anxiety disorder. Safety behaviors are considered to play a role in the persistence of irrational fears, because they can prevent patients from learning that the catastrophe they expect does not occur. For example, a patient with panic disorder may not experience that he will not die of a heart attack when he leaves the house without a mobile phone, and a patient with social anxiety disorder may not learn that others will not reject her if she looks them in the eyes. Clinical guidelines (e.g., Abramowitz, Deacon, & Whiteside, 2011; Craske, Treanor, Conway, Zbozinek, & Vervliet, 2014; Keijsers, van Minnen, & Hoogduin, 2011) therefore recommend eliminating all safety behaviors during the treatment of pathological anxiety. However, the notion that safety behaviors are always detrimental to the beneficial effects of psychological therapy was challenged by Rachman, Radomsky, and Shafran (2008). They proposed a reconsideration of the categorical rejection of safety behaviors during treatment,