Sophia Amargi, MFT is a licensed Psychotherapist, Trauma expert and motivational and inspirational speaker. She supervises MFT Interns, and cultivates the interpersonal and humanistic relationship with her interns that allows for full transparency and introspection on the part of the intern as he or she uses the compassionate understanding their own wounds as an opportunity to align with and feel into the actual experience of their clients in order to be of greatest service in the process of becoming a licensed provider.

She has over 25 years of experience working with healers from around the world that employ different kinds of plant medicines, entheogens and psychedelics to facilitate healing on a quantum level. Sophia understands that it is critical to successfully integrate the medicine experience in order for real transformation to sustain and allows the consciousness of the plants themselves to inform and guide this work.

In addition to her longstanding Trauma work, Sophia has over 20 years of consulting, educating and teaching in the field of addiction and recovery . Sophia sees addiction as a response to unhealed trauma and the feelings and emotions these early Traumas activate. To tolerate strong emotions or to feel intense feelings that are uncomfortable, one must have a strong, robust and resilient ego. Without a solid sense of self as the 'I am' and without understanding that our emotions are a valuable part of our navigational system in the world, the tendency is to disconnect from them, to try not to feel what feels bad and distract from feelings of grief, rage, pain, sadness and loss by any means necessary-often this is a substance or behavior that will momentarily change the felt experience but for long term healing, one needs to develop a robust egoic self that can tolerate and navigate difficulty with competency and mastery. This is early and developmental and what wasn't transitioned when it was developmentally appropriate in order to build a strong internal foundation of self at the correct developmental period, has to be transited through now.

To accomplish this, Sophia focuses on early childhood development; yrs O-5, Object relations theory, attachment wounding, somatic experiencing and expanding the client's internal bandwidth to tolerate uncomfortable feelings that are connected to negative beliefs about oneself. This falls under the overarch of the Trauma/Story/Belief schema and when Sophia is lecturing, teaching, consulting and training others to work within the field of addiction/recovery it is this orientation that is congruent with her spiritual overarch of the original wound being the lie of disconnection from Source itself.

Sophia has Masters Degree in Transpersonal Psychotherapy from California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco and is a trained EMDR provider. Sophia has taught Trauma and Crisis and Human Sexuality at the Graduate level as an adjunct Professor at JFK University and continues to teach and grow her workshop; Reclaiming Your Essential Self.

Sophia's private practice is in Corona Del Mar and Laguna Beach.