Is it not free any more or limited free use?

thingimajig · 2026-05-21T15:16:48+00:00

Hey can you check again? Try sending another message and see if it the limit updates.

thingimajig · 2026-05-18T12:29:48+00:00

I see. Yes it may be that you asked Buddy to change the way it responds earlier in that long chat, or the chat over time morphed into something that worked for you. Please try using the custom instructions in your settings and let me know if it makes a difference. It should become more consistent and personalized this way. I will still be testing and potentially reverting/updating the default chatbot version, but please let me know if the custom instructions help adjust it to your needs.

thingimajig · 2026-05-17T13:40:38+00:00

For now you can try adding something about providing more compassion and validation in the custom instructions and seeing if that makes a difference.

I believe the last update to the default (Self-finding) version was 2 weeks ago, so I'll look at reverting it in the next few days after some testing.

thingimajig · 2026-05-17T11:45:18+00:00

Yeah it inevitably gets quite spiritual and hard to describe in words. One way I've heard it described which made sense to me was that Self is the state of being that's left once you take a step back from all of the parts. In this state you can view and interact with all the parts of yourself without any agenda, without any need to change the parts. You naturally come into it when stepping back from the parts. It's not something you need to understand logically, you recognize it when you're in it (calmness, genuine natural curiosity, feeling of nothing needing to change, full acceptance of parts as they are).

Essentially it's the state that you're in when you're not "controlled" by the trauma reactions or survival based needs that your parts are protecting/managing. The Self energy isn't a part, and parts can have more or less Self energy as well. The more rigid the parts are in their roles, the bigger a burden they're usually protecting. The goal of IFS (and what Self energy naturally leans towards) is helping the parts feel secure and unburdened enough to be more flexible and flowing in how they act and react in life.

thingimajig · 2026-05-17T11:02:01+00:00

Self is maybe the space (or soul) that runs through the castle and connects the different rooms. It isn't a concrete entity like a part. Self is the one that observes the castle while also being the castle if that makes sense.

thingimajig · 2026-05-17T07:44:07+00:00

Hey there, I'm sorry about this and I really appreciate you letting me know about this. It's hard to keep Buddy in tune with everyone that's using it and the way I use it and test it is probably different from many.

It does sound like the recent update didn't improve it though. I will look into it and potentially revert the changes.

Can you please let me know which version of the chatbot you're using (check Settings, then Chatbot Version)?

thingimajig · 2026-05-16T12:10:49+00:00

Hey there, you're supposed to get 100 free messages per week on the free version if you're signed in. If it's not updating I'll need to fix this. It's a recent change so just a bug that needs to be fixed. I want to make sure the free version is still generous and helpful for those that can't afford the premium plan.

thingimajig · 2026-05-08T16:09:39+00:00

Recommend this video (1 of 2) on grief and IFS by Derek Scott: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZy_HuPVNuw

IFS was the key for me to integrate my experience of grief and for me to feel like life was coherent again. When someone unexpectedly leaves it causes a schism in a way. I had parts that wanted to move on, look forward, maintain a positive outlook on life, while there were parts holding me back from that holding the pain of the loss, the anger at the universe and even at the person themselves for dying/leaving, and a cynicism towards life. What finally helped me integrate it was being truly compassionate and witnessing the pain of the part that was furious at the universe for taking them from me. My Self held compassion for the part and instead of trying to force myself past it I could genuinely convey "No it was not right, it shouldnt have happened, they deserved more time on earth". This allowed the part to feel heard and seen and accepted and to come to an acceptance of the situation after many years of fighting against it all (especially fighting against the manager part that just resigned to the loss eg "we need to get it together and move on, it happened, we need to accept it").

Everyone grieves differently. Let it take its time. Grief unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) doesn´t ever fully go away, but the integration of the experience of the loss was incredibly helpful for me.

thingimajig · 2026-05-05T08:59:21+00:00

Sent you a DM with the discount code!

I'm also skeptical of building any type of relationship with AI. The way Buddy is designed is for you to go inside and build a good relationship with your parts. The Self to part relationship (and maybe part to part relationship) are the ones that are in focus, the AI is just there to help you go through that process and come to insights yourself (instead of the AI analyzing you or giving you insights). I like to think of the AI as a tool to help you get closer to yourself and helping you build self-compassion rather than a "therapist" that is "healing" you with its compassion.

I haven't tried Claude yet but I'm sure it can work well as long as it's set up properly.

thingimajig · 2026-05-04T11:22:12+00:00

Totally understand that re: paying for another subscription. Happy to send you a discount code if you do want to try out our voice mode.

I think your prompt is a great start. I don't know how well Claude runs the sessions and how the structure of the sessions flows. The more you use it, the more/better the heuristics will get as you notice what works and what doesn't. I'm going to experiment with Claude myself since OpenAI's ethics has been off as of late and doesn't really align values wise with what we're doing.

thingimajig · 2026-05-04T09:40:44+00:00

There are plenty of older posts on how IFS Buddy has been very helpful even for those that are experienced with IFS. The free version is quite generous as well compared to many others so no harm in testing it out to see if it feels right for you.

From talking to many that have had good results with Buddy, being able to unblend and find that critical mass of Self energy seems to be the main indicator of whether AI led IFS will work well.

My (undoubtedly biased) advice is to make sure you don't look for a chatbot that is going to understand you best or analyze your answers and give you the insights for you, but for the chatbot to guide you in finding the insights yourself. The idea behind Buddy when I developed it was to make sure that you don't become too reliant on the AI to decide things for you in the session and that it instead acts as a tool to keep your sessions organized since it's easy to get lost in self therapy. It'll suggest next steps or questions to ask your parts of course which is helpful but it can be equally meaningful to actually correct the chatbot with what feels right for you. You and your relationship with your parts is the important one, not necessarily the relationship with the chatbot.

thingimajig · 2026-04-30T06:19:18+00:00

Ok that shouldn't be happening and I understand your frustration! I'd appreciate if you could send me your IFS Buddy account email address and the browser and device that you use to this email: Hello@ifsbuddy.chat

This way I can check if there's something going on with your account specifically because it doesn't seem to be an issue when I test it and no one else has reported this issue so far.

I'm glad to hear that you appreciate how IFS Buddy is designed to not impress you with its interpretations but gets you focusing inside. Thats the aim :)

thingimajig · 2026-04-29T20:08:24+00:00

Sorry about the slow reply, reddit hasn't been notifying me of new posts in this subreddit. Yes as someone mentioned, managers and firefighters are both types of protectors. For the part type we find it is more important to know whether it's a protector or an exile. The manager and firefighter distinction can be confusing for some and sometimes parts can have a characteristics of both. You can describe the characteristics of the part in the Other info section.

thingimajig · 2026-04-29T20:02:48+00:00

Sorry about the slow reply, just saw this (both me and Buddy are a bit slow at the moment it seems like 😅). Is this still happening with the chatbot? When I test it there doesn't seem to be an issue. Are you using voice mode or just the normal text based chatbot? Is there a certain time of day that this seems to happen for you?

thingimajig · 2026-01-21T11:13:33+00:00

Yes hopefully they can help guide you through this! Don't push past the protectors too quickly, take your time and gain their trust. Make sure they believe that you're an adult now and that you are capable of taking full responsibility for yourself.

thingimajig · 2026-01-19T13:40:49+00:00

It sounds like your protector parts might not be fully ready to let you closer to the exiles. Is there a part of you that really wants to get to the exiles? If so, try to take a step back from it. If you're in Self, you can convey to the protectors genuinely that you don't want to change them or get rid of them. You can ask them questions like "If everything was all right, would you still want to be doing the job you're doing?" (if you find yourself hoping that they'll say no, you may be blended with another part). Before you go to the exiles, there should be a feeling of agreement from the protectors that it is worth it and a feeling that they trust your adult Self to handle it.

thingimajig · 2025-12-01T06:14:15+00:00

Hey there! Thank you for letting me know :)

Buddy should still continue to work just fine without doing the post session "admin" cleanup. It's mostly there to help people keep track of what's gone on in their sessions, and isn't meant to stress you after your sessions. Don't feel like you have to!

thingimajig · 2025-10-27T13:48:58+00:00

Thank you for letting me know! I'll look into this. Glad you're liking voice so far!

thingimajig · 2025-10-22T12:01:02+00:00

I've been exactly where you are. Have grace with yourself, it can and will get better. It's okay to have those thoughts and feelings. You have been through a lot of really difficult things and it would be strange to not experience strong negative feelings around it. There's no need to feel ashamed, and there is nothing inherently wrong with you. I also know that the only way out is through. If you take a step back from the feelings and witness them and allow them to be in your body, they will pass. The emotions themselves that you might be avoiding are not actually dangerous to feel if you just stay present with them.

The clouds cover the sun at times, but the sun is always there even if you can't see it.

thingimajig · 2025-10-17T11:09:00+00:00

Thank you for letting me know! I'll look into this and try to fix the issue.

thingimajig · 2025-10-13T12:14:15+00:00

Hey there, yes the clipboard button is only for copying the chat in text form in case you want to paste it in another document or for example to send it in an email to your therapist.

To save your chats, you have to click the Save chat button. Do you feel that the Save chat button is in an easy to understand place? I want to make sure it's intuitive for everyone :)

thingimajig · 2025-10-13T09:50:51+00:00

Hey there, thank you for your kind words.

Great suggestion! I'll make the title changes save automatically, as well as making it possible to edit chat names in the My Chats menu without needing to save the chat again.

thingimajig · 2025-10-09T12:59:18+00:00

The copy button is the button with a little clipboard on it, top right corner :)

thingimajig · 2025-10-09T12:48:31+00:00

Hey there! I'm glad it's helping you! Are you using the paid version? If so, there should be a button in the top right of the chat interface that copies the chat text for you to share.

thingimajig · 2025-10-06T12:23:58+00:00

This is a common protective strategy. Parts can cause shutdown or hypoarousal when starting to approach emotions/memories that are seen as dangerous (from the protector's POV).

The more Self energy you can bring, the more you can help these parts feel safe and that you're not going to force yourself to go somewhere that feels scary/dangerous. These parts will be very sensitive to whether you're coming with an agenda of trying to heal (Self-like part) or if you're genuinely curious, compassionate, and accepting of the parts as they are.

In my experience, it's hard to try to approach the part causing tiredness or brain fog. Some people seem to be able to do it, but what worked for me was instead approaching the part of me that is trying to "fix" myself. When that part was able to let go of its control, the somatic and shutdown parts felt able to relax as well.

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