Auto-Immune Disorders, A Deeper Look at Healing Beyond “Incurable”
- 2 hours ago
- 5 min read
Mel Abbott is a mind-body health specialist and founder of The Switch Program, a pioneering approach that helps people recover from chronic illnesses such as ME/CFS, fibromyalgia, CRPS, anxiety, and many other conditions.
Auto-immune disorders are typically described as lifelong, incurable illnesses that must be medically managed rather than resolved. Yet emerging research is beginning to challenge this assumption. This article explores how real people have recovered from auto-immune conditions labelled “incurable”, what modern science tells us about the links between stress, emotion, and immune function, and how supporting nervous system regulation can sometimes allow the immune system to reset and heal.
What are auto-immune disorders?
Auto-immune disorders occur when the immune system, whose job is to protect the body, mistakenly attacks the body’s own healthy tissues. Depending on which tissues are affected, this can show up as:
joint inflammation and destruction (e.g., rheumatoid arthritis),
widespread systemic inflammation (e.g., lupus),
digestive tract (e.g., Crohn’s disease),
thyroid dysfunction (e.g., Hashimoto’s disease
skin conditions (e.g., Psoriasis)
and more.
Mainstream treatment involves potent immunosuppressants and anti-inflammatory medications. While these treatments can be essential for symptom control and preventing organ damage, many people find the side effects as difficult to tolerate as the condition. However, if we instead look for the underlying cause of these conditions instead of just managing symptoms, a more sustainable outcome can be achieved.
What the science says about stress, emotion, trauma, and immunity
Research increasingly shows that the immune system does not operate in isolation. Instead, it is deeply influenced by the nervous system and stress physiology.
Psychological stress predicts autoimmune risk. Large population studies show that people diagnosed with stress-related disorders, including PTSD and acute stress reactions, have a significantly increased risk of developing autoimmune disease.
Childhood trauma correlates with later autoimmune illness. Individuals with histories of childhood trauma have higher rates of autoimmune disease in adulthood.
Chronic stress alters immune regulation. The hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis, the body’s central stress response system, directly interacts with immune signalling. Chronic stress and cortisol dysregulation are associated with sustained inflammation and loss of immune tolerance.
Stress often precedes the onset or flare. Many people with autoimmune conditions report significant emotional stress prior to disease onset or symptom flares, suggesting stress commonly acts as a trigger or amplifier.
This evidence does not suggest that emotions and a stress response are the sole causes of auto-immune conditions. Auto-immune illness is multifactorial, but it does suggest significant links between these stress and immune function, and possible reasons for the good results that many of my clients are reporting.
Client’s experiences that challenge the “incurable” label
My first auto-immune client was a woman who had lived with rheumatoid arthritis for ten years. By the time she came to see me, her fingers were severely distorted and immobile, and she lived with constant pain. By the end of Day 4 of my programme, she had regained full movement in her fingers and experienced a dramatic reduction in pain. Within two weeks, her symptoms had resolved completely, and she returned to her doctor to discuss a safe medication-weaning plan.
Another client had active lupus during her first pregnancy, with persistently elevated CRP inflammatory markers and poor foetal growth. After completing the Switch programme, her symptoms resolved. Follow-up blood tests showed her inflammatory markers had normalised. She later went on to have a second pregnancy, during which both she and her baby remained healthy.
Here is a movie of a client attending The Switch, showing her increases in finger movement and comfort across the four days of the programme.
Here is a 20-minute interview with a client talking about his recovery by attending The Switch. He talks about how he could not even hold his own toothbrush before the Switch, and had CRP markers of 155. After The Switch, his levels are now in single fingers and he is thrilled by how much his inflammation has reduced.
These are not isolated anomalies. I have seen these sorts of results regularly over 15 years in clinical practice. You can view more recovery stories here.
Are auto-immune conditions “all in the mind”?
No. Just because people resolved their conditions using emotional healing techniques does not mean the condition was all in the mind.
Auto-immune disease involves real immune processes, inflammation, tissue damage, and measurable biomarkers. What this work suggests is that the mind, nervous system, and immune system are not separate systems, but parts of one integrated whole. Changes in stress regulation, emotional processing, and belief frameworks influence neuroendocrine pathways that in turn affect immune behaviour.
What can you do to help resolve your auto-immune disorder?
While every person’s situation is unique, several themes appear again and again. While you should see a doctor for diagnosis and treatment, there are many things you can also do to help your healing.
Restore hope. Simply encountering credible recovery stories can have a measurable physiological effect. When people realise recovery might be possible, the nervous system often softens, reducing threat signalling and stress activation. For some, this alone begins to shift symptoms.
Actively calm the physiological stress response. Practices such as meditation, breathing exercises, gentle movement, time in nature, and activities that feel genuinely relaxing help shift the body out of chronic fight-or-flight. As stress physiology settles, energy becomes available for better immune regulation and repair.
Change patterns that maintain threat. Constant symptom monitoring, predicting flares, worry, and frustration, while understandable, can keep the nervous system in a heightened danger state. Learning to step back from these patterns allows the body to register safety and continue healing.
Address guilt and unresolved emotional load. Many autoimmune clients carry long-standing guilt or unresolved trauma. Releasing it can significantly reduce internal stress and immune over-activation.
If these steps are sufficient for you, that is wonderful. If they are not, it does not mean failure, it simply means deeper nervous system support is needed. At The Switch, we work with more comprehensive techniques that address trauma resolution, belief change, and nervous system dysregulation.
Visit here for more info.
You can attend a free 45-minute webinar “First Steps to Recovery” to find out more, or you can sign up for our 4-day Switch programme for full support and techniques.
For an overview of the main principles covered, you can read this Related Article: Chronic Illness Recovery – Address the Five Root Causes.
A note on medical care
This article is not intended as medical advice and is not a substitute for diagnosis or treatment by a qualified healthcare professional. Auto-immune conditions can be serious and, in some cases, life-threatening. The approaches described here are intended to complement, not replace, conventional medical care. Clients who have reduced or erased symptoms by attending The Switch are recommended to redo blood tests and speak to their doctor before weaning from medications.
Read more from Mel Abbott
Mel Abbott, Therapist in Chronic Illness Recovery
Mel Abbott is a mind-body health specialist and founder of The Switch Program. After an 11-year struggle with chronic illness herself, she made a full recovery and has since helped thousands of people worldwide overcome conditions such as ME/CFS, fibromyalgia, CRPS, anxiety, and more, achieving around 80% success rates. She has been voted best speaker at two national GP medical conferences and is a contributor to the Otago Medical School Year 3 handbook, where her insights help shape the next generation of doctors. Mel’s work blends science, compassion, and practical tools to calm the nervous system and unlock the body’s natural healing ability. Her passion is simple yet powerful, recovery is possible!)
