If you’ve looked for somatic therapy Costa Mesa recently, you’ve probably landed on a list of licensed therapists, Yelp reviews, and Psychology Today profiles.
Most of them are good people doing valuable work.
But if you’ve already tried talk therapy, or if the idea of sitting across from someone and discussing your childhood for the fifth year in a row doesn’t appeal to you, there’s something happening in Costa Mesa that most people don’t know exists yet.
It’s called somatic energy work. And it operates at a completely different level than anything in that search results list.
What “Somatic” Actually Means (And Why It Matters)
The word somatic comes from the Greek soma, meaning body. Every approach that calls itself somatic acknowledges the same fundamental truth: stress, tension, and trauma don’t just live in the mind, they’re stored physically in the body.
You probably already know this intuitively. You feel it as the tightness in your jaw at the end of a long day. The knot in your chest before a difficult conversation. The exhaustion that sleep doesn’t touch. The low hum of anxiety that’s just… always there.
Most somatic therapy approaches work with this through conversation, a therapist asks questions, you notice sensations, you talk about what comes up. It’s a real and legitimate approach. For many people, it helps.
But for a lot of people, especially high performers, analytical types, and people who’ve already done years of therapy, it doesn’t go deep enough. There’s a layer underneath that talking can’t quite reach.
That’s where somatic energy work is different.
Why Top Human Is Different From Every Other Option in the Area
Top Human is the practice of André Crabb, a former Silicon Valley software engineer who spent 12 years debugging complex systems before applying that same engineering logic to the human body.
What he found, after years of searching for what actually moved the needle on his own chronic stress and physical breakdown, was that the body holds things the mind can’t access through conversation alone. And that there’s a direct, structured, repeatable way to work with what the body is holding, not by talking about it, but by working with the body’s own energetic and nervous system directly.
The method he uses is called Table Work: hands-on somatic energy sessions conducted on a treatment table, fully clothed, with no talking required.
André trained under Dr. John Amaral, one of the world’s foremost somatic energy practitioners, with over 30 years of experience. Dr. Amaral’s clients have included Tony Robbins, who received this work privately for years. When the results are good enough for someone with access to any practitioner in the world, that says something.
What Actually Happens in a Session
You arrive. You lie down on the table, fully clothed.
André works using light, non-manipulative touch, reading what your system is holding and creating conditions for it to release. There’s no pressure, no manipulation, no need to explain anything or revisit anything. Most clients lie in silence the entire session.
What happens next is different for everyone, but here’s how some clients have described it:
“Parts of me that were kept away for years are coming back online. I can feel parts of my body again that have been numb for 9 years. Every inch of my body feels alive.” – Emily, Veteran
“I had a powerful and positive experience working with André. He was able to help release some heaviness from my heart that I wasn’t even aware I had been carrying. Afterward, I felt lighter, more energized, more grounded, and more connected to myself.” – Paola, Wellness Business Owner
“What André does is the real deal. Since regularly receiving table sessions, I noticed a deeper sense of peace and clarity in my mind. My nervous system regulates more effectively than it did in the past. I can feel a deeper level of overall calm and relaxation in my physical body, even days after a session.” – Megan, Neurosomatic Specialist
“Since starting sessions with André, I feel more at ease in my body and mind. I also feel more comfortable being vulnerable with others and being in ‘flow’ with life in general.” – Stacie, Erotic Blueprint Coach
These aren’t descriptions of relaxation or temporary relief. They’re descriptions of a system reorganizing, of things that had been stored for years actually leaving.
This Is Not Reiki. This Is Not Meditation. This Is Not Therapy.
This distinction matters, because the words “energy work” can make some people check out immediately. Fairly.
A lot of what gets called energy healing is vague, hard to describe, and difficult to evaluate. You pay for a session, someone waves their hands over you, you leave feeling the same, or politely uncertain whether anything happened.
Table Work at Top Human is not that.
It is structured. Methodical. Repeatable. There are specific techniques, specific responses André tracks in real time, and a clear mechanism for what’s happening: the body’s bound energy, stress, tension, stored emotional charge, is being given conditions to discharge and release. This is the same biological process that happens when animals shake after a threat passes. The human body knows how to do this. It just rarely gets the opportunity, or the right conditions, to do it.
The results are felt, not imagined. Clients who arrived skeptical are often the most surprised.
Who This Is For
Table Work at Top Human is particularly effective for:
- High performers and executives carrying years of accumulated stress with no real outlet for release
- People who’ve done therapy and made intellectual progress but still feel stuck in the body
- Anyone dealing with chronic tension, anxiety, or fatigue that doesn’t respond to conventional approaches
- People who don’t want to talk who want something that works without requiring them to analyze, explain, or revisit the past
- Skeptics who want a grounded, results-driven approach without belief or spiritual prerequisites
Sessions are available in Costa Mesa and Irvine.
The Difference Between Feeling Better and Actually Changing
Most stress management approaches, massage, meditation, breathwork, even therap, help you feel better in the moment. That’s real value.
But the feeling often doesn’t last. You leave the session calmer. By the next day, the baseline has returned. You’re back to the same tightness, the same loop of thoughts, the same low-grade tension you’ve been carrying for years.
That’s because those approaches work at the level of the symptom. They address how you feel without changing what’s stored.
Table Work is aimed at the stored material itself, the bound energy that generates the symptoms. When it releases, the baseline shifts. Clients don’t just report feeling better after a session. They report feeling different, a new normal that carries forward into their daily life.
As Dr. John Amaral describes it:
“It’s a hardwiring shift. And then you can play new software. It’s like you just updated the hardware and now the system can receive new information and start to operate differently.”
Why Costa Mesa and Orange County Need This
Orange County is one of the wealthiest, highest-achieving regions in the country. It’s also, quietly, one of the most stressed.
High-performance lifestyles carry a cost that doesn’t show up on the surface. The relentless pace, the pressure to maintain, the suppression of anything that might look like weakness, it accumulates. In the body. Over years.
Most people here have access to great conventional care. What’s been missing is something that goes underneath the conventional, something that works at the level where stress actually lives, in the nervous system and the tissues, not just in the mind.
That’s what Top Human brings to Costa Mesa.
Ready to Find Out What’s Actually in the Way?
The entry session is a ~60-minute Table Work session designed to identify what your system is holding and create real, felt movement toward releasing it.
Most people notice something in the first session. Some feel a shift they haven’t felt in years.
Book at https://www.tophuman.co/tablework
Or start with a free discovery call if you want to learn more first.