During all these years, he continued to extend his theory and therapy of the emotional problems. In Oslo, he continued his research, studying the bioelectric nature of pleasure and anxiety and enigma of the origin of life. Reich was particularly concerned with what produced the muscular contraction and held it. Investigation led to the realm of the vegetative nervous system and the basic antithesis of vegetative functioning. Excitation of the sympathetic nervous system causes contraction, which is felt as anxiety.
Paraympathetic excitation causes expansion, which is felt as pleasure.
Chronic sympatheticatonia caused and maintained the armor. Pleasure, or expansion, is felt in the skin. Reich believed that in pleasure there was an electrical charge at the skin surface, and he set about to investigate. He used a galvanometer and found that such was the case. The greater the pleasure, the higher the charge which showed on the galvanometer.