About Jessie Santiago, CCHt

My professional Life

I am a Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist, Reiki Master Instructor, intuitive healer, painter, and beauty ritualist based in Long Beach, California. My work sits at the intersection of subconscious transformation, nervous system regulation, and creative expression, held through a decolonized, justice-centered lens.

For over 20 years I worked behind the chair as a hairstylist, educator, and salon owner. I taught at institutions like AVEDA and Paul Mitchell and eventually opened my own trauma-informed, LGBTQ+ centered salon. What I learned there is that people don't come for the service. They come for the space. I was holding something long before I had the clinical language for it.

When I decided to go deeper, I considered pursuing licensure as a clinical social worker. After researching it closely I realized that model wouldn't allow me to practice in the way I felt called to. Hypnotherapy offered rigorous, advanced clinical training that also aligned with my values. It gave me the tools to work ethically, to decolonize the practice of mental health support, and to create care that reflects both my political and moral commitments.

I completed my training through the Hypnosis Motivation Institute, the first nationally accredited college of hypnotherapy in the United States. My approach integrates clinical hypnosis, somatic awareness, intuitive reading, energy work, and expressive therapies to support transformation at every level — body, mind, spirit, and identity.

For referring clinicians, I want to be clear about how I work. I do not diagnose. I do not treat mental illness. I work collaboratively and I welcome communication with a client's existing treatment team. My work is most effective as a complement to therapy, not a replacement for it. If your client has hit a ceiling with talk-based approaches, or if they are ready to work directly with the subconscious patterns underneath their presenting issues, I may be the next right step to follow the thread back to yourself.

My Personal Story

I was born in Ceiba, Puerto Rico, the youngest of two sisters, raised by a single mother who carried our culture with us through every move: the food, the music, the stories, the spirituality of our people. From a young age I was tuned in to things I couldn't explain. Even as a kid, I was tuned in to things I couldn't explain. When I was seven, I asked my mom if she remembered my boyfriend with the red Camaro. I had never had a boyfriend, and obviously no one I knew had that car. But I remembered him anyway. My family still laughs about it, but for me it was an early glimpse of an intuition that showed up long before I had words for it. Growing up queer and neurodivergent in a conservative southern town, I was bullied, misunderstood, and often felt like the odd one out, even in my own family. I was deeply sensitive, able to feel the emotions of everyone around me, and without support, that sensitivity sometimes overwhelmed me. For a long time I thought being too much was my flaw.

Now I understand it's my gift. My sensitivity, my intuition, my creativity, and my hunger for meaning were never problems. They were the raw materials of who I am. Today I'm a queer Puerto Rican woman, a healing artist, and someone who knows what it means to feel both broken and whole at the same time. I work with people like me: sensitive, neurodivergent, intuitive beings who need a reminder that they are not broken. They are becoming.

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