There is a considerable number of patients (19% to 62%) that experience a relapse of fear after completing extinction-based therapy. Patients with anxiety disorders (AD) and highly anxious individuals show accelerated fear conditioning and diminished fear extinction, highlighting the necessity of improving extinction learning in AD patients. Instructions given prior to extinction training, stating that the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) will not be presented anymore, have been shown to improve extinction learning. Furthermore, it has been shown that relapse of fear can be reduced by repeating the instructions before extinction retrieval. However, giving instructions directly before retrieval is not applicable to therapy since the therapist is not present during the time after therapy. Therefore, the aim of the present study is to examine whether explicit instructions at various time points affect extinction and the retrieval of extinction memory in both AD patients and healthy individuals. In a 3-day fear conditioning paradigm, we provide explicit instructions that the UCS won’t be presented anymore before and/or after extinction. We will examine whether these instructions affect extinction learning on the second day and extinction retrieval and reinstatement on the third day. Furthermore, we will compare the fear acquisition and extinction learning rates of AD patients and healthy controls. Skin conductance responses, CS valence and UCS expectancy ratings serve as conditioning measures. The results will be presented and discussed.