Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) Course
- 11 hours ago
- 4 min read
Welcome to the Free Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) Course by Everything IFS Academy
Course Outline
Orientation
Core Teachings
Closing
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy written as ACT and often referred to as the word 'act' rather than the three letters is one of the most studied and widely used psychological approaches developed in the past forty years. Its central insight is that the way out of suffering is not through controlling your inner experience but through learning to live alongside it while you build a life in the direction of what matters to you. ACT is taught in therapy rooms, in workplaces, in books, and in self-study. This course teaches it as a complete model from the ground up.
You do not need a clinical background to begin. You only need willingness, attention, and the patience to return to the practices as they teach.
This course teaches Pure ACT — NO IFS integration
This course is a pure teaching of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. There is no IFS integration in the lessons, and there are no parts work practices at the end of each module. The course teaches ACT as a complete model on its own terms. If you came here looking for an IFS-and-ACT integration course, that is a different course we offer; this one teaches ACT.
What This Free Course Explores
This free course explores ACT through the full arc of the model, from the philosophical foundation through the six core processes and into the integrated stance of living the ACT life.
You will learn what ACT is, where it came from, and what makes it distinct from older cognitive approaches. You will meet Steven C. Hayes, the psychologist who built the model out of his own experience with panic disorder. You will study the six core processes that build psychological flexibility, present-moment contact, cognitive defusion, acceptance, self-as-context, values, and committed action with each process receiving its own full module of teaching, named practices, common pitfalls, and direct application.
The course also covers what ACT does and does not promise, how the six processes integrate into a single way of moving through ordinary life, and how the model becomes something you can return to for the rest of your life rather than a set of techniques you learn once and put away.
The goal is not a quick set of therapy tools. The goal is to help you understand ACT as a complete model and to walk away with the language, the skills, and the framework to begin using it in your own life.
Who This Course Is For
This course is for readers who want to learn ACT clearly and practically.
It is for beginners who have heard the name and want a real foundation, not a surface-level overview. It is also for readers who have encountered ACT in books or therapy and want to study the model as a complete system. It is for people who have spent years working on themselves through other modalities and want to add ACT's particular way of thinking about thoughts, feelings, values, and action to their toolkit.
This course is educational and is not a substitute for therapy or mental health care. It teaches the ACT model for personal understanding and practice rather than as treatment for clinical conditions.
How to Move Through the Course
The ACT Course is designed to be taken in order, especially the first time through. The early lessons orient you to what ACT is, where it came from, and the principles underneath the whole approach. The middle lessons walk through the six core processes, one at a time. The final lesson brings the model into the integrated stance of living the ACT life.
You are still free to move at your own pace. There are no tests, no homework requirements, and no expectation that you finish quickly. ACT is the kind of model that deepens through return rather than through speed. Many readers find it useful to read a module, sit with it for a few days while they notice the patterns it describes in their own life, then move on.
A journal can be useful as you move through the course. Any notebook or digital document can work. You can use it to track the practices you try, the thoughts and feelings that arise as you study them, the values you are clarifying, and the small actions you commit to.
If life interrupts the practice, you can return when you return. The model is not going anywhere.
What You'll Learn
In this course, you will learn how to:
Understand what ACT is, where it came from, and how it differs from older cognitive approaches
Recognize the control agenda — why trying to manage your inner experience tends to backfire and shift to the workability question ACT uses instead
Develop the six core skills of psychological flexibility: present-moment contact, cognitive defusion, acceptance, self-as-context, values, and committed action
Work with named ACT practices like Leaves on a Stream, Expansion, the Observer Exercise, the Bullseye, and others, with clarity about what each is for and when to use it
Identify your own values clearly and translate them into goals and actions you can actually take
Live the ACT model as an integrated stance, open to inner experience, centered in the present, engaged with what matters rather than as six separate skills to alternate between
Begin the Course
The full course outline is below. Each module title will take you directly to that lesson.
You can move through all nine modules in order, or you can choose the lessons that interest you most right now. The course is built as an arc, so the lessons will make the most sense from beginning to end, but you do not have to finish every module for the course to be useful.
Click or tap any module title below to begin.
Course Outline
Orientation
Core Teachings
Module 2: The Present Moment Module 3: Cognitive Defusion Module 4: Acceptance Module 5: Self-as-Context Module 6: Values Module 7: Committed Action
Closing
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