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🌱Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) |Free Course

Jun 5
4 min read

Updated: 1 day ago

An anxious woman in a camel coat grips a subway pole in soft daylight beside an ERP poster reading, “Uncertainty is part of life. You can move forward with it.

Help us reach the people who may need this most by sharing this free course with friends, family, colleagues, online communities, social media or on your own website.


🎧  Audio - Listen as you go - (coming soon)


🌱Welcome to the Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) Course for Everyday People


In 1966, a London psychologist named Victor Meyer tried something his colleagues considered too bold to work on a condition considered nearly untreatable, and it became the foundation of the most effective OCD treatment ever developed. Researchers like Edna Foa spent the following decades refining and proving it, until ERP earned the title it still holds today: the gold-standard, first-line treatment for OCD, backed by more than fifty years of research. The insight at its heart has never changed, and it runs against every instinct fear gives us: lasting freedom comes not from soothing a fear, but from facing it while declining the rituals that keep it alive.


This course teaches pure ERP, with no other modalities blended in, written in plain, emotionally relatable language for everyday people. You'll learn how obsessions and compulsions lock together into a loop, how exposure ladders break overwhelming fears into climbable steps, and what response prevention really asks of you in the moment the urge to ritualize hits. Each module offers clear teaching and real-life examples, and ends with a simple ERP practice so you can begin using the skill right away. It isn't clinical training for therapists and doesn't offer continuing education credits; it's ERP you can put to use in your own life. Take them in order or jump straight to what interests you.



Course outline

Click any module below to begin.


The Basics



Mapping OCD


The Exposure Work

10. Interoceptive Exposure



The Response Prevention Work




Making It Stick




Living It



Bonus




OCD Themes Overviews













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Who Writes Our Courses


Our free self-paced courses are a genuine human-AI collaboration, roughly 50% human and 50% AI.


These courses are not someone typing a single prompt and publishing whatever comes out.


We do not use a free or entry-level AI. We invest in one of the most advanced professional-tier AI models available, because the depth and accuracy of writing at this level is in a different league from what most people experience with low-cost AI.


While AI models arrive with extensive training across these topics, we never rely on that alone. Before drafting a single lesson, the AI performs in-depth research on that specific topic, pulling from resources written by qualified experts in the field: published books, professional essays, clinical resources, and articles from practitioners and specialists with relevant credentials. Every draft is grounded in that expert-created material, not generated from thin air.


With that said, whether something is written entirely by humans, entirely by AI, or by the two working together, errors can occur. We encourage readers to verify important information and consult a qualified professional in the relevant area wherever appropriate.


For those who would like more specifics, here is the six-step process behind every course:


1. Humans design the courses and set the teaching standards and outlines

2. Humans shape the arc of each lesson

3. AI conducts deep, highly specific research on each individual lesson topic before drafting the lesson

4. Humans review, direct, and run multiple edits alongside AI

5. Humans approves every lesson before it's published

6. Each finished course then goes to Eleven Labs, where it's recorded by one of their AI voices


We have poured a tremendous amount of time, care, and love into these free courses, in the hope that they help you become your best Self.


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We Hope You Enjoyed The Course

Help us reach the people who may need this most by sharing this free course with friends, family, colleagues, online communities, social media or on your own website.



Disclaimer:

Everything IFS Academy is an independent educational platform and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the IFS Institute. While we strive for accuracy, errors can occur, and users are encouraged to cross-reference critical information. These courses, lessons, skills, and practices are offered for educational and self-reflection purposes only. They do not constitute therapy, mental health treatment, clinical training, or crisis support, and they should not be used as a substitute for professional mental health care.


Crisis Support: 🚨

If you are experiencing a mental health crisis, feel unsafe, feel at risk of harming yourself or someone else, or feel too overwhelmed to safely use self-directed practices, please pause this material and reach out for immediate support. Contact a licensed mental health professional, call or text 988 in the U.S. or Canada, or use your local emergency or crisis resources.

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