Autoimmune Analysis & Recovery Support
This 1:1 program is for people who sense that their autoimmune condition may have relational, emotional, cultural, or nervous-system dimensions that deserve deeper attention. Together, we explore how chronic stress, relational dynamics, trauma, social expectations, or cultural environments that no longer feel safe may be affecting your nervous and immune systems.
Research increasingly suggests biological links between trauma, chronic stress, and autoimmune disease activity. At the same time, interpersonal stress is always shaped by culture, relationships, and the social environments we move through daily. In our work together, we identify the triggers within your social and relational environment and explore how they may be mediated by wider cultural conditions and expectations. Rather than focusing only on symptoms, we work with the deeper relational, cultural, and nervous-system patterns underlying them. This perspective will not resonate with everyone living with rheumatoid arthritis or autoimmune illness. For some people, environmental toxins or other biological factors may play a greater role. But many people intuitively feel that their illness is also connected to prolonged stress, relational strain, hypervigilance, or experiences that never fully allowed the body to relax out of defense mode.
Many people living with autoimmune illness describe feeling constantly responsible for others, emotionally trapped, unable to fully rest, or as though their body never truly feels safe. In my own recovery journey, I came to feel that healing also required developing more coherent and realistic defense strategies around the situations, dynamics, and environments that continuously triggered stress within my system. Autoimmunity can be understood as a state in which the body’s defense system becomes confused about what it is defending against. Without a coherent sense of what genuinely requires protection, the body may remain caught in chronic defensive responses directed toward the wrong target: ourselves.
Drawing from anthropology, trauma-informed somatic coaching, reflective dialogue, and energetic regulation practices, I support clients in understanding these deeper patterns and developing greater coherence, emotional clarity, regulation, and embodied safety within the reality they are actually living. As someone who has personally lived with seropositive arthritis, I approach this work with both personal understanding and realism. As a single mother, I also know that healing cannot be separated from material conditions, caregiving responsibilities, financial pressures, or relational complexity. I do not offer simplistic solutions or promise a cure. Instead, I offer reflective, culturally informed, and emotionally grounded support for people seeking to better understand the deeper patterns affecting their wellbeing.
My work is also informed by emerging research on trauma, nervous system dysregulation, mitochondrial function, and the Cell Danger Response theory developed by Dr. Robert Naviaux. This theory describes how the body can shift into long-term defense states when danger is continually perceived. Part of our work together is exploring whether certain relationships, environments, or internalized relational roles may still be signaling danger to your system. Through narrative interviews — a core anthropological method — reflective dialogue, embodied awareness practices, and energy-based regulation techniques such as tapping, I support clients in:
recognizing patterns of activation earlier,
reconnecting with intuition and bodily awareness,
understanding relational stress more clearly,
and developing ways of relating that feel more coherent and sustainable for both body and mind.
Through energy-based regulation techniques such as tapping, we work to calm the nervous system and cultivate a greater internal sense of safety and regulation — helping the body gradually move out of chronic defense states and into greater coherence.
The 4 Stages of the Sankofa Coaching Method℠
1. Narrative & Relational Mapping
We begin with a narrative interview inspired by cultural anthropology. You share your story, background, health journey, and the experiences you feel may be connected to your autoimmune condition. Together, we examine patterns of disease activity alongside relational, emotional, and cultural contexts to identify what may be contributing to immune dysregulation.
2. Anthropological & Cultural Insight
I introduce relevant anthropological perspectives, including non-western approaches to illness, healing, community, and relational life. I may also work with mythological frameworks and symbolic systems — such as Anancy or Eshu traditions — to open new ways of understanding your experiences and possibilities for healing.
3. Relational & Cultural Reorganization
Together, we explore which insights resonate with you and how they might be practically integrated into your life. The goal is to restructure relationships, perceptions, and relational patterns in ways that feel more coherent, sustainable, and less stressful for the nervous and immune systems.
4. Integration & Energetic Regulation
I support you in integrating these insights through the Sankofa Coaching Method℠ using nervous-system-conscious practices, energetic regulation techniques, reflective dialogue, and ongoing support. The aim is to cultivate greater coherence, agency, clarity, and embodied safety while strengthening your capacity to navigate relationships and life conditions in healthier and more sustainable ways.
Stucture and cost: 1 month (1x a week/4 weeks) package 500 usd; additional reflection sessions can be booked (125 usd per session)
A central aspect of my work is exploring autoimmune illness through an anthropological lens. In many western healing spaces, autoimmune disease is often explained through ideas such as weak boundaries, suppressed anger, lack of authenticity, or enmeshment. Yet many collectivist societies — which emphasize interdependence rather than individualism — have historically shown far lower rates of autoimmune illness, despite social structures that western psychology might often describe as highly enmeshed. This raises deeper questions about the relationship between culture, stress, social structure, and immune dysregulation. Together, we explore whether the issue is connection itself, or whether the body may instead be responding to chronic relational incoherence, conflicting expectations, overload, and ways of living that require constant adaptation from the nervous system.
Important note: My work is intended as anthropological, reflective, and energetic support alongside medical care. It is not a replacement for medical treatment and does not promise a cure, but offers a supportive space for exploring the relational, cultural, emotional, and nervous-system dimensions of autoimmune illness alongside existing care. See full disclaimer
