Tiffany Sorya was born in poverty in a remote village of Issogne in Thailand. She was married at the age of 18 to an American contractor who changed her name to Tiffany Sorya and used her middle name. Tiffany was one of six children born to parents who were part of the Thai Royal Family. Her parents, like many other people of royalty from that time, were rounded up and killed during the Coup. Tiffany was forced to marry an American serviceman during the height of the war and never reclaimed her Thai title or nationality.
Tiffany grew up in Texas, USA and learned English in school but this did not come highly recommended by her father. She attended college briefly and then began a career as a counselor in social work before she pursued law as an attorney. In addition to her legal work, she became the first female Counselor to the Thailand National Council for Law diction (NCLD) and also served as a volunteer in the Thai navy. In this capacity, Tiffany Sorya did not hold any posts in government and refused to be chairperson of the King’s Council of Reductions or the National Development Coordination Commission or the Supreme Council for Education.
In 1992, she came to Thailand to study under Dr. Widchanray, who is considered as one of the leading authorities on developmental psychology. Tiffany graduated cum laude with her bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Michigan-Dearborn School of Business, where she earned a reputation as one of the top scholars of the program. When Dr. Widchanray left the country to take up a professorship in Psychiatry at Bangkok’s Dong Krachan Medical School, Tiffany continued her studies and became a practicing psychotherapist, specializing in counselling at both residential and outpatient facilities.