Emotion has been explored thus far as a movement of sensation and tension in the body. Only some of an individual's emotional expression can be observed from outside. We can see the curl of the lips in disgust, the heaving of the chest in sobs, the blazing eyes of rage, and therapy works with these visible movements of emotion through expressive channels which may be relatively open or blocked. Movement at this level can still be seen as private or personal: if a person cries or becomes angry alone, the expressive movements will occur. There is no need for the presence of another person.

But at a further level, the expressive movement of emotion can become social, as a larger movement toward or away from another person. If you feel longing or sadness when your partner is with you, you may reach out and want to hold onto them. In anger you may push them away or rush out of the room. It is difficult to state whether such movements are voluntary or involuntary: they happen spontaneously, but often there is an element of decision in them. It lies, not in making the social expression occur, but in removing the barriers which might prevent it. The snap decision is whether or not to follow an impulse, in this case to move either toward or away from another. It is as if we have veto power on spontaneous movement. Once it is in motion we do not need to control it, but we can normally stop it at will.

At a further level, we can will ourselves to movement. Most unpleasant tasks and much daily work are in this sense voluntary. We can also will ourselves to embrace someone, or even to make love with them, if we consider this our duty. However, in such cases the emotion does not necessarily follow the physical movement. One person may embrace another but be thinking of the next meal. This "going through the motions" of an embrace is achieved through cutting contact and the other person, if at all sensitive, will usually feel its emptiness—unless that person, too, wants only to go through the motions.

In other words, emotions and apparently expressive social movement can sometimes be out of step. When they are in step, however, we have a sense of unity: physical and emotional movement are as one. To an outside observer this is visible as gracefulness or spontaneity. In such a unified state there are no forced extra movements, and action is performed with economy and, again, grace. In a relationship, most men and women are aware of when their interaction flows in this way and of when it seems "out of synch" and becomes ritualistic or wooden, accompanied by hidden anxiety on both sides.

Armor against perception of streamings, against feeling the full breathing puIsation, and against involuntary emotional expression, can be understood as a series of ways in which the veto function, the "no" to spontaneous movement, becomes anchored in the body musculature. It may no longer be necessary for a person to make the conscious decision whether or not to reach out: armor in the chest and shoulders, and in eyes which do not readily see with trust, prevents not only reaching out but even the perception of an impulse to do so. Two experiences are blocked: the actual movement, and the feeling of the emotion which might drive the movement.

Broadly speaking, the earlier the muscle armor is formed, the more it serves to block feeling. The later it is formed, the more it serves to block movement. An example of the first case is a child who has been left alone frequently to "cry it out," who has become tamed and does not protest much since crying gets the child nowhere. The chest and abdomen tend in such a case to be chronically locked down flat, by tension in the shoulder muscles, which hook forward to keep the chest down, and in the abdominal wall. This block is against movement in the body itself—the rise and fall of the breathing—but its function is primarily to prevent feelings of pain and grief, both of which are intensified when chest and abdomen move freely. Such a block may be formed as early as in the first year of life.

The second kind of blocking is usually formed after the age of one, when the child enters the stage of locomotive movement. In such a case, chest and abdomen may be armored by being pushed out and rigid, perhaps in an attitude of defiance which nevertheless represents an inhibition of aggressive movement. For example, shoulders held back by chronic tension in muscles of the upper back may be repressing the possibility of angry movements such as hitting out or throwing things.

Beyond these two kinds of veto—against feeling, or against movement—there is another kind of blocking which can be called "active blocking." Here the block is not so much an anchored "no," as a forced "yes" to a substitute action. The psychoanalysts call this "reaction formation." An example might be the person who is full of aggressive feelings but has discovered a way of repressing them by being excessively polite always; or a person who has great anxiety about sexual potency may be able to simulate or prove potency through a forced sexual athleticism, Involuntary movement is not necessarily physically impossible when blocked by a heavy armor but since it would cause anxiety it is constantly replaced by voluntary movement. This requires a measure of control from the brain and central nervous system. Normally this kind of blocking is externally visible as an impairment of contact, as discussed earlier. The person hiding vicious urges behind a polite exterior can seldom look another person intensely in the eye. The sexual athlete cannot show tenderness through the eyes. Instead the eyes tend to be either cold and motionless or closed; they may be shifty with anxiety at maintaining the performance and perhaps keeping up a level of self-deception or forced fantasy.

In some people a trauma around the period of birth has created a very early "contact block" in which the eyes and brain maintain a state of non-contact with a reality which would be overwhelming if perceived fully. Contact with the outside world would lead to feelings of a split between sensation and perception, of falling apart, of not being integrated. A precarious integration is maintained by living basically "inside" the self in a world of images or thoughts. Such a person is not normally heavily armored against feeling or movement but against the breathing pulsation, a suspension of which is part of this basic contact block. Breathing pulsation remains adequate for the biochemical maintenance of life but is not deep enough to permit much spontaneous movement.

To sum up, blocks to pulsation and spontaneous movement may be seen as follows:

Early muscle armor, which mainly blocks feeling.

Later muscle armor which mainly blocks movement.

Early contact block, with suspended pulsation.

Later contact block, with active blocking.

All four kinds of blocking can be observed even at rest, although a challenge to produce an emotional response through contact, or movement or intensification of the breathing produces resistance which makes the blocking more easily observable.

In Reichian therapy, blocks are observed in terms of "armor segments." Reich is said to have remarked that since people were offended when Darwin showed their physical descent from the apes, no doubt they would be more offended when he, Reich, showed their emotional descent from jellyfish and worms. This kind of thinking can indeed be offensively mechanical. Reichian therapists, if they have a sense of humor, can be warned by the English nursery song:

A jellyfish swam in the tropical sea And said "there's no one I'd rather be,

There's nothing above and nothing below That a jellyfish doesn't know."

We are more than jellyfish. But some of our functioning is at the jellyfish or worm level. A jellyfish expands and contracts in a pulsation which can be compared with the pulsation in human breathing and in the convulsions of orgasm. A worm contains a series of segments, each with its own bundles of nerve synapses, each moving as a unit in the general forward movement of the worm. Neurologists refer to "segments" in the human nervous system, branching out from the spine. Reich conceived of armor segments in terms of motor function, meaning areas where groups of muscles combine together in expressive movement. For example, when one tightens the jaw and sticks it forward, this movement involves not only the jaw muscles but also the back of the neck. That is, it involves a ring of muscle, like the segment of a worm, which is activated. This does not necessarily involve muscles above or below the ring (e.g. in the scalp or in the shoulders) but in certain cases it might: someone screaming, for instance, or shouting. Here, if a muscle segment is in a state of chronic tension it will certainly effect the equilibrium and capacity for movement of the whole body just as a worm held still by one segment would have its whole movement impeded.