It was a cold, crisp December night when Sophia Kupse glanced up to the stars sprinkled across a clear sky, before getting into her car.

She had barely started driving when she saw a pair of headlights approaching, on her side of the road. What followed was a devastating accident which could have ended Sophia’s life – but instead led to a new vocation in pain management.

She went on to develop a pioneering approach – using massage, volcanic heat and ice marble, Sophia unlocks back, neck and shoulder pain she believes is caused by a build-up of emotional stress.

Based on the traditional Chinese medicine theory that good health is related to the balance between opposite but complementary forces of Yin and Yang, she focuses on male and female energy in the body.

Sophia set up holistic therapy business The Muscle Whisperer and runs two clinics in Idle, Bradford, and in London. Hollywood actress Liv Tyler is among the clients she has treated.

With back pain accounting for millions of employment days lost to ill health, Sophia calls it a “silent epidemic”.

“Back pain reflects our past,” she says. “Emotional stress manifests in the body and is held in our back muscles, turning to pain. Whether it’s a difficult childhood or relationship, or the loss of a loved one, there’s an emotional reason behind physical pain.”

Her quest for a natural treatment was triggered by a car crash leaving her facing life in a wheelchair, aged 23. It was Christmas Eve, 1987, and Sophia had just left Midnight Mass. She was still in first gear when another car ploughed towards her.

“I was hit head-on at 50 miles-an-hour by a drunk driver who’d had an epileptic fit at the wheel,” says Sophia. It took six firefighters to cut her out of her saloon, shrunk to the size of a Mini. As a fire officer tried to keep her conscious, Sophia focused on what little breath she had, praying she would stay alive.

She spent Christmas in hospital, attached to tubes and wires, with her face “distorted beyond recognition”.

It was six weeks before she could bring herself to look in a mirror.

Sophia suffered a punctured lung, a damaged sciatic nerve, cracked ribs, broken nose and jaw and severe bruising, and was warned she may spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair. As she started her recovery, she focused on her interest in the power of the mind, creating a “visual storyboard” of places she would travel to, her dream home, and the family and friends who would share it with her.

“Instead of reliving what I’d been through, I started to practise a primitive version of meditation,” Sophia recalls. “By tapping into my subconscious mind, I controlled my thought patterns, allowing my body’s natural self-healing to take over. If I’d wallowed in reliving the accident, I wouldn’t have made progress.

“For me the accident was a catalyst – while I was rehabilitating I discovered how powerful the mind can be – it can create illness, but it can also heal.”

Clearing her thoughts and focusing on her breathing, Sophia tried to control her pain “using a lot of concentration and self-belief”. Over nine months she made a recovery.

She began training in holistic therapies, studying the power of mind over body and learning massage disciplines, including La Stone therapy – applying heat and cold to activate the body’s natural healing process.

Taking the notion that subconscious thought patterns trigger pain, Sophia developed a revolutionary three-way treatment blending advanced massage techniques, volcanic heat and ice marble to release stress and trauma held in the neck, shoulder and back muscles. She called it Langellotti Tri-Therapy, or ‘LT Therapy’, after her Italian heritage.

Sophia was born in Bradford to a Hungarian father and Italian mother. As a child she helped her father in his allotment, picking ingredients for natural remedies he made for ailments such as colds.

He made creams from calendula flowers, to heal grazes, and nettle tea. My intuitivity in holistic medicine came from my dad,” says Sophia. “Mum taught me about the use of herbs in food. I inherited her passion for cookery, which transferred to my passion for healing.”

Sophia’s mother, a nurse, was her first patient. “Her lower back pain started when she was 42. When I started work on her back, I knew her history,” says Sophia. “She was orphaned, brought up by strict nuns and was never allowed to express her creative side. Her third baby was stillborn and my mother blamed her quick, successive pregnancies and poor diet due to poverty.”

Working on her neck and shoulders, Sophia identified a tense area in her mother’s left side, which in Eastern medicine reflects male energy. She says her mother’s pain was linked to her lost baby, and her often difficult marriage.

“She refused to believe it, convinced it was all down to her physical job,” says Sophia. “The turning point came when I started to backtrack her life. She realised she was blaming physical things, when really her pain was down to guilt and anger.”

As Sophia’s mother made lifestyle changes, her back pain diminished. “The back is the body’s biggest muscle group, it’s the ‘mother ship’,” says Sophia. “If we have a pain in our leg or repeated headaches it means somewhere in the back a muscle is blocked. I trace the root of the problem. Anyone can massage soft tissue, but I identity areas that are blocked, to restore synergy and balance in the body. If we have a pain, we take a pill; life is busy, we seek quick solutions, but what we need is a lifestyle change. Stress, if not treated, leads to mental health disorders.

“My car accident left me with psychological issues such as anxiety, panic attacks, low self-esteem and lack of confidence to drive again. I understand those emotions well.”

Sophia, who works with the charities MIND and Rethink Mental Illness, treats clients with stress-related conditions linked to depression, anxiety, divorce and bereavement.

“When people walk in, they leave what they brought in on the table,” she says. “The amount of treatment depends on the individual. Three weeks is usually the maximum , and the onus is on them to change their lifestyle.”

For more about the Muscle Whisperer, contact Sophia Kupse on 07957 113425, email sophiathemw @gmail.com or visit themusclewhisperer.co.uk.

Sophia’s book The Muscle Whisperer: The Keys To Unlocking Your Back Pain is available from Amazon.