Autoimmunity refers to a state of the body where the defence cells of the immune system turn against the tissue cells of the organism concerned. If this process results in tissue damage, the term ""autoimmune disease"" is applied in medicine – for a condition that at first glance seems to be a crisis of the individual, a ""crisis within"". But as Anderson and Mackay (2014) show in their ""Short History of Autoimmunity"", this dynamic has already become a global health problem: Currently up to ten percent of the population have to face an autoimmune disease within their lifetime, and the numbers are rapidly growing. So it is not only a personal crisis but a crisis of our society; a global crisis.

Since Paul Ehrlich coined the term ""horror autotoxicus"" in regard to autoimmunity, the notion of the autoimmune body as a body who treats itself as foreign is drafted as a dark and threatening image. In patient advice books this grim undertone is still present, e.g. in formulations like ""senseless self destruction of the body"", or in the application of metaphors of civil war and terrorism. Such formulations create a verbal imagery that at least causes irritation and even may induce helplessness and resignation in persons concerned – instead of providing constructive approaches for coping with a life crisis as it is posed by an autoimmune disease. Consequently the main objective of this project is to elaborate new research strategies resulting in different images as cognitive maps for those affected.

Cause and genesis of autoimmune diseases are still in the dark of the biomedical model, so new ways of understanding these processes are in demand. The here presented project on the margins of medicine and mythology aims at finding other perspectives that allow for new conceptions of autoimmunity. It follows new approaches to open the door for an expanded understanding of autoimmune dynamics, and to provide productive answers to the progressing autoimmune crisis we are facing today.