Where Did Af-x Come From? 
The architect of the modern Af-x approach is Ian White, Sydney practitioner and academic. His path has involved Bukkyo Zen (philosophical - i.e. non-religious) studies and mindfulness meditation practice and teaching.

He has moved through a variety of therapies over four decades, all of which have involved human subconscious (unconscious) dynamics. These studies and practices, along with many years of research into the neuroscience of affect formation has culminated in a melding of these disciplines to form both affectology (the science of feeling) and Af-x (the science of feeling better!).

While there is no such thing as “a new therapy;” a “new wheel,” Af-x acknowledges that its approach is bred from a variety of intelligent and commonsense aspects of other treatments. So, it can be said that Af-x includes elements of:

• Research into affective neuroscience – the findings that we learn “who and how” we are so early that there are no words to describe it – and that that affect underpinning (ideogenetic sense of self) is carried through in unconscious trace-memory form to our adult selves.
• Ego State Therapy (a transactional psychotherapeutic treatment approach that seeks to re-integrate subconscious parts of self)
• Morita Therapy (a Zen/psychiatric hybrid approach to emotional and mental conditions) which advocates that the only healing is self-healing and the only help is self-help, with SOME guidance.
• Zen philosophy (as to the perfection of all people – all of us)
• Transactional Analysis (regarding unconscious dissociative states)
• Ian White was an original co-developer of an earlier form of Af-x known then as P.S.H. (Private Subconscious-mind Healing). Some operative aspects of this work, along with those mentioned above, are a part of the treatment approach of Af-x.
• Other forms of therapy, all of which depend on a discrete respect for the uniqueness of the unconscious mind – i.e. Ampuku Shiatsu, Subconscious Parts Therapy, Breath-work, Bukkyo Zen Mindfulness Therapy. Elements of PSH (Private Subconscious-mind Healing) an earlier form of Af-x

(although it must be said that Af-x is certainly not PSH, having a wholly different set of imperatives and disciplined approach methodology. More than a decade of research and refinement has seen Af-x grow to a much more sophisticated and disciplined level. As Ian White was one of the original developers and trainers of the PSH paradigm, he has brought forward the workable and viable aspects of that therapy into the Af-x paradigm).

Notwithstanding influences from without, Af-x can be said to be a true reflection of an attitude of “looking after self” and rejecting that which makes little sense. That attitude is soundly supported by neuroscience and philosophy, so Af-x is a true marriage of Eastern (Zen) philosophy and Western (neuroscience) research and findings. Ian White claims only to be the marriage celebrant.