Recovery, Meaning, and Autoimmune Illness

I am currently completing a Master’s dissertation exploring how individuals who have experienced sustained recovery from autoimmune illness understand and make sense of their return to health.

Autoimmune conditions are commonly described as lifelong and chronic. Yet some people experience a genuine and lasting return to stable health drug-free. This research asks a simple but underexplored question: How do people make sense of what changed?

The study focuses on subjective processes: meaning-making, identity shifts, perceived agency, and the frameworks through which recovery is interpreted.

This project forms part of my broader interest in how subjective experience, belief, and identity interact with biology.