This segment can be considered first as a kind of bridge between the very expressive oral and thoracic segments. Growling, snarling, kissing, and sucking are all very active expressions from the oral segment; just as hitting out, pulling, pushing or reaching are active expressions from the thoracic segment. The throat does not obviously have its own expressions, but it is the essential link between the segments above and below: to strike out and yell, or to reach out and sigh openly, are impossible unless the throat is able to open. When the throat most obviously blocks by becoming tight, this inhibits expression from the mouth; to a lesser extent it also inhibits movement from arms and shoulders which must be "powered" by an open respiration.

The range of expression exclusive to the throat segment is that which can be expressed with the tongue. The tongue is part of this segment since its muscles originate in the throat. You can experiment with this by opening your mouth fairly wide, letting the tongue hang out loosely over the bottom lip, and beginning to make an aaaah sound. As you make the sound, bring your tongue progressively back into your mouth and bunch it back toward your throat. You will notice your sound becoming more and more closed and strangled, as your throat tightens. Some may find it hard to get the tongue beyond the lips. This is a block which often accompanies an overly quiet, choked or rasping voice.

3:1 The explorer will have already involved the throat segment fairly actively in the preceding work on the oral segment. Start again now by asking the explorer to make an open sound while breathing out, and to find the position of the tongue which helps the sound be most open.

3:2 Ask them to mobilize the tongue while making sounds, by licking the lips, or pressing the tongue inside the mouth against cheeks or teeth. The tongue's resting place will depend on feeding conditions during infancy. Quite common is a tongue pressing hard against the teeth, most often the bottom, or lying sluggishly in the floor of the mouth.

The ideal position according to many orthodontists and speech experts who also work with Reichian or expressive therapy, is for the tip of the tongue to have its resting place just behind and above the upper front teeth, relaxed against the palate without pressure. This is an open position for the airway through the mouth. Encourage the explorer to find this optimum position for the tongue and to maintain it while sighing out, to the sound of aaaah.

3:3 If this feels awkward, or as a further exploration, an alternative is to stick the tongue out and curl it down over the lower lip while making the sound.

3:4 When the tongue is held just above and behind the upper teeth, any sound the explorer makes will be rather soft at first. In a loud yell, the tongue would be floating free just below this ideal resting position. Now, encourage the person to make a louder sound. Note whether this sound is strangled or choked, or if it will not come through.

A few people may be almost mute when asked to make a sound without words attached. You might discuss their fear of making inarticulate sounds and continue to encourage them to make sounds all through this exploratory work. Do not insist, however. It may mask a deep anxiety best dealt with in formal therapy; less severely, it may be a kind of self-consciousness (the explorer may have no difficulty making a sound when alone).

3:5 Ask the explorer to choke a towel, holding the two hands close together but twisting from opposite directions, as if wringing the neck of a chicken: this crude image is deliberate, since for many people twisting a towel evokes images of strangulation. At the same time ask the explorer to exaggerate the sound. For many people, choking a towel vigorously has the effect of opening the sound in their own throat. It is as if they are releasing through their hands a tension and an aggression that have somehow been turned back on their own throat. (Psychoanalysts call this phenomenon "retroflection").

3:6 In some people, persistent attempts to make a loud, open sound lead to a further anxious tightening of the throat. Here it is best to take an opposite course and back off from the sound while making it. Encourage the explorer to make a steady sound but always gently, never pushing. Usually the sound will only continue for part of the out-breath. Help the explorer by urging them to continue the sound, even quietly, to the very end of the out-breath.

In a few rare cases the person can only make a very quiet sound but the throat is apparently open: the sound is very soft, but not choked. Here the block is probably in the diaphragm. Put your hand between the explorer's waist and navel and encourage them to breathe in fully under your hand then push sound from that point while breathing out. Eventually they should gain a sense of propelling the sound upward from the abdomen. However, remember that some people have naturally quiet voices!

3:7 Pause for a few moments, and discuss briefly how the explorer has experienced the sound coming through their throat and how you have heard it.

3:8 A further step is to ask the explorer to gag. This does not have to be a horrifying procedure. Lying on the back the explorer will not vomit; gagging will open the throat and, at least temporarily, it may dissolve some habitual tensions or armor in the diaphragm and chest segments, and open the whole breathing. Ask the explorer to proceed as follows: let the head tilt back— breathe out with a sigh—toward the end of the out-breath stick the middle finger down the mouth—touch the back of the throat gently until the gag reflex comes.

In the gag reflex the body will tend to jerk forward sharply. The explorer may cough and splutter. Ask them to repeat the maneuver but without coughing, if possible, and without swallowing immediately afterward. This way the explorer will not choke, however likely it feels. Ask them to resume breathing openly, but without swallowing, for at least a few breaths. It may be difficult so do not push matters. The idea is to take advantage of the temporary opening of the throat which the gagging provides. Have them breathe along and make sounds. Note whether the gagging has opened up the capacity for sound.

3:9 Ask the explorer to look at you after gagging. You may see some sadness in the eyes; they may even cry. Gagging often brings up emotions which have been held in a tight throat. It also, of course, aids unblocking the tear ducts by making the eyes water.

Gagging is always useful as emotional first aid for anxiety, because it can temporarily dissolve accumulated tension. (Some people, such as those suffering from bulimia, or compulsive eating and vomiting, abuse this anxiety-relieving function of gagging: do remember that anxiety is often useful, it is a message from yourself, not merely something to be gotten rid of.)

Gagging may be useful in couples work any time an emotional expression seems to be held in the throat. It is not usually necessary to elicit the gag reflex more than two or three times in a given session. If the explorer has great difficulty with gagging, it can be practiced at the beginning of each session. Often the explorer will try to "push" the gagging anxiously. Let it be passive. The trick is to let the finger go down and trigger the reflex without anticipating it.

If the explorer finds the idea of gagging too distasteful even to attempt, it is worth discussing this resistance to what is, after all, a natural process of rejection. Healthy infants will gag themselves readily, using fingers or the whole hand, if they feel the need. For some adults, gagging may have painful or deeply disgusting associations from childhood that they would prefer to forget, but are worth bringing to the surface. As an indication of the indivisibility of the emotional, the mental and the physical, it usually happens that the "bringing up" of memories of disgust is helped by increasing the capacity to gag or vomit. A couple who wish to know each other truly can surely live with the knowledge of whatever disgusts each partner.