Your parts and how entries are read

After each entry, GoodParts reads what you said and gently names the parts it hears. It reads the text of your entry, never the audio. It is a journal inspired by Internal Family Systems, and what it offers are readings for you to check against your own sense of things, not conclusions. More on the approach.

What a part is

A part is an inner voice that keeps showing up in your own words. GoodParts gives each one a role, which describes what the part does rather than how it feels:

• Manager runs ahead of trouble, keeping things in order so an old hurt is never touched.
• Firefighter reacts fast once a hurt has already been stirred up.
• Exile carries the hurt itself.
• Protector is clearly guarding something, when the entry does not show which kind.
• Unsettled means the role is not clear yet.

As GoodParts puts it when you first open the app: There are no bad parts. The parts you meet most often gather on the Parts tab.

Parts are meant to come only from your own inner experience. A list, a quoted poem or another person's words should not produce any, so some entries have none. Those say No parts surfaced in this entry.

What happens after you record

After you stop recording, GoodParts works through a few steps: Transcribing, Received, Tidying the words, Listening for parts, Noticing who came up and Mapping relationships. You can follow them on the entry itself and on the Activity screen, and your journal marks the entry Still processing until they are done. On iPhone, the Lock Screen card described in how recording works shows progress too.

There is no set time. If notifications are on, you will get Your entry is ready when it finishes, or We couldn't finish your entry if it could not be read. Neither ever includes anything you said, and the ready notice is not shown while you have the app open.

A finished entry shows, from the top:

• The feel: the mood and themes of the entry.
• Reflection: a few sentences about the parts that seem to be speaking, held tentatively and ending with one open question. It may point to an earlier entry that echoes this one. When there is no reflection, for example on older entries or one where no part came up, this card is called Summary instead.
• Parts that showed up, each with a line from what you said.
• People & places you mentioned.
• What you said: your entry as text.
• Reflect on this, to record a follow-up.

The reflection, your parts' descriptions and your insights are finished just after the rest, so they can appear a moment after the entry is marked Complete. Insights, on the Insights tab, are refreshed as you journal, and each one can show Entries behind this and Parts in this pattern.

If an entry needs you

If an entry cannot be read, it says This one needs you with a Try again button. Trying again does not count as a new entry.

Names, roles and the people you mention

GoodParts is shown the parts you already have, and it reuses a part's name when an entry is about the same one. If you rename a part, later entries use your name, and its old name still leads to the same part.

A role is GoodParts' reading of what the part was doing, and it can shift as the part comes back in new entries. If a role looks wrong, it may settle as the part reappears. You cannot set a role yourself.

The people, pets, places and situations you mention most often gather on the Mentions tab. Open one to Rename it or to correct who they are to you, such as a friend or a coworker. When two look like the same person, the tab suggests combining them under THESE MIGHT BE THE SAME PERSON.

Renaming, merging and deleting parts

On a part's screen, Suggest a name offers a few ideas based on how the part has shown up. Tap one to use it.

To change a part yourself, go to Settings, then Parts management, which lists the same parts as the Parts tab, and choose the part. There you can rename it with Save name, fold another part into it with Merge another part into this one, or Delete this part.

• A merge moves every entry onto one part and removes the other. A merge you start yourself can't be undone.
• Deleting a part keeps your entries: Your entries stay. They just won't be grouped under this part anymore. Any Visits to that part are deleted with it.

GoodParts also suggests tidying up. When two parts look like the same one, the Journal tab shows THESE MIGHT BE THE SAME PART with Merge and Not now, and Parts management lists POSSIBLE DUPLICATES and SUGGESTED RENAMES. After a merge you accept from one of these suggestions, you are offered Undo.

How you met a part

On a part's screen, the lines under Where it showed up can carry one word for how you were relating to the part in that entry:

• blended: speaking as the part.
• critical: at odds with it, wanting it gone.
• observing: noticing it as a part.
• curious: asking what it wants.
• compassionate: warm toward it.

The word is only added when the entry shows it. These words are never averaged, scored or added up.

Visiting a part

Visit this part is a short written check-in; the microphone is not used. You get one question matched to the part's role. Then, if you like, you can answer How are you meeting this part right now? with a word, and write down What you noticed. Tap Save visit and it appears on the part's screen under Your visits. Visits stay with the part; they are not read for analysis.

For an Exile, Visit this part appears only once you have allowed going deeper with that part.

Going deeper

Every part's screen has Going deeper with this part. It starts off: Reflections stay with what this part shows you. You can change this at any time. Until you change it, a reflection leaves the part out if it is an Exile.

If you choose Allow going deeper, a reflection may turn toward what the part protects, and its closing question may offer a gentle next step for another time rather than right now. If the part is an Exile, the reflection can then include it. This only happens when your own words in the entry point that way, and it never pushes; otherwise the reflection stays as it was. You can switch it back whenever you like with Stop going deeper. Under the control, the app is plain about what it is: GoodParts is for journaling and self-reflection. It is not therapy, not a therapist, and not a crisis service.

Find some calm first

On the Journal tab, under Or just speak freely, Find some calm first opens a short written practice. The microphone is not used. One question at a time. There’s nothing to get right, and you can stop whenever you like. Nothing is kept unless you tap Save practice, and saved ones are listed under Recent practices. Once a practice is saved, Visit a part next may offer a short written Visit with one of your parts, if one came up while you were quiet. It is optional.

If something you say sounds heavy

If an entry, a Visit note or a practice note contains words about suicide, self-harm or not wanting to exist, GoodParts shows a card headed If you need someone now, with Call 988, Text 988 and Helplines outside the US.

The check happens on your phone and works by matching phrases, not by understanding what you meant, so now and then the card may appear when you did not need it. It cannot be dismissed, and nothing about it is stored, counted or reported.

An entry like that is not read for parts and gets no reflection. Its summary is replaced with a short message encouraging you to reach a trusted person or a professional, with the same resources.

What analysis is not

GoodParts is not built to diagnose anything. The model that reads your entry is told not to diagnose and to keep its summary warm and non-clinical. The one that writes your reflection is told to avoid clinical or therapy language and advice you did not ask for, and to hold every reading tentatively. A model can still get things wrong, so treat what you read as a possibility, not a verdict. The disclaimer says more.