 From 1930 onwards , Reich began to treat patients outside the limits of psychoanalysis 's restrictions . He would sit opposite them , rather than behind them as they lay on a couch ( the traditional psychoanalyst 's position ) , and began talking to them and answering their questions , instead of offering the stock , " Why do you ask ? " analyst 's response . He had noticed that after a successful course of psychoanalysis his patients would hold their bodies differently , so he began to try to communicate with the body using touch . He asked his male patients to undress down to their shorts , and sometimes entirely , and his female patients down to their underclothes , and began to massage them to loosen their body armour . He would also ask them to simulate physically the effects of certain emotions in the hope of triggering them . 
