Applying the Archetypal Spiral to OCD, Panic and Social Anxiety: Mindful Flow in Clinical Contexts (Part 2)

This blog maps out how the Archetypal Spiral Model can relate to different psychological problems/presentations and in the context of psychotherapy. This is part 2 - covering Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Panic and Social Anxiety. Part 1 covered 1. Depression, 2. Generalised Anxiety and 3. Trauma.

For context on the Archetypal Spiral model. or framework, that we apply in this blog, please see previous blogs, such as The Spiral of Connection & Disconnection: Archetypes, Values, and the Journey Towards Wholeness and Mindful Flow - Utilising the Archetypal Spiral Model

You can also see and explore the interactive representation of the model here.

4. Obsessive - Compulsive Disorder  -  Restoring Coherence under Uncertainty

In the context of the Spiral of Connection and Disconnection, an obsessive–compulsive presentation can be understood as a frozen oscillation around the poles of Truth and Courage - an unfinished movement that fails to reach Compassion and instead collapses into Shame.  While on the surface it may appear as a pattern of control - whether over thoughts, contamination, or moral perfection - beneath it lies an attempt to self-regulate unbearable emotional states. The compulsive act, however irrational it may seem, is often an adaptive strategy that once served to create safety or predictability in an environment where the person felt powerless. In this sense, obsessive–compulsive phenomena do not represent a failure of reason but rather a crisis of trust: a breakdown in the organism’s capacity to discern what is safe, real, and “enough.”

From an evolutionary and attachment perspective, the obsessive- compulsive loop can be seen as the psyche’s attempt to stabilise itself when early relationships failed to provide reliable co-regulation.  When a child grows up in an atmosphere of unpredictability - where mistakes are punished, emotions dismissed, or love withdrawn - the mind learns that vigilance and control are safer than spontaneity.  The compulsion, therefore, functions as a self-administered regulation strategy, a ritualised substitute for the soothing that did not become internalised.

As Maté (2012) and Schore and Schore (2007) suggest, in the absence of attuned caregiving, children turn to substitute behaviours to manage arousal; OCD can be seen as an evolved, sophisticated version of this same mechanism.  The washing, checking, or counting becomes a way to “keep the world together” - to quiet the body’s alarm through action, even if fleetingly.

Within the Spiral model, OCD reflects a collapse of Courage into avoidance, of Truth into hypervigilance and control, and compassion into shame.

The drive to act - the Courage vector - is hijacked by fear; and the need for clarity - the Truth vector - becomes distorted into an endless search for certainty. Compassion, the integrating force, retreats into secrecy and self-criticism.   Clients often describe feeling tormented not only by their obsessions but by the shame of having them: “What kind of person thinks these things?” This moral self-condemnation - rooted in early attachment wounds - fuels the very loops it seeks to extinguish.  In Spiral terms, the system becomes locked in the Drama Triangle’s Victim - Persecutor dynamic: the inner persecutor attacking the self for its thoughts, and the inner victim seeking relief through ritualised submission.

Healing begins when the compulsive loop is recognised not as an enemy but as a protector - an expression of Love attempting to manage terror.  Rather than demanding the person “stop the rituals,” therapy invites curiosity:  “What is this behaviour trying to protect? What value is it serving?”  Often, the ritual encodes a legitimate value - care for others, responsibility, cleanliness, integrity - yet expressed through fear rather than freedom.  The task, then, is to redeem the value from the ritual, and create movements towards increased alignment with values.

From a Mindful Flow perspective, OCD represents a system trapped at one end of the Challenge × Skill continuum - overwhelmed by excessive challenge (uncertainty, intrusive threat) and insufficient inner skills of regulation.  Flow is replaced by parasitic processing: repetitive cognitive loops that mimic control but stifle creativity.  Therapy, therefore, involves titrated re-engagement with uncertainty in a context of safety - a process that mirrors Flow’s balance between challenge and competence.

Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), when framed this way, becomes less about habituation and more about cultivating Courage - the willingness to face uncertainty while anchored in awareness and value congruence. Therefore, each act of delayed compulsion is a micro-act of integration, where Courage (approach) and Compassion (soothing) join to accept the Truth of uncertainty.

In cases where OCD is intertwined with early attachment trauma, as research increasingly shows (e.g., Boger et al., 2020; Visser et al., 2022), Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) offers a direct way to reprocess the underlying shame-laden memories that fuel the compulsive loop.  Within an attachment-informed EMDR framework (Parnell, 2013, 2019), the therapist helps the client identify key memories of moral humiliation, disgust, or rejection that gave rise to the core belief “I am bad” or “I must control everything to be safe.”During bilateral stimulation, attention oscillates between the activating memory and present safety, mirroring the Spiral’s movement between disconnection and connection.  As the memory loses its charge, the compulsive need for control softens. The body learns, experientially, that safety can coexist with uncertainty.

Consider a client with scrupulosity who repeatedly confesses minor “sins” out of fear of moral corruption.  Early in therapy, their compulsions appear purely cognitive, but as processing unfolds, they recall a childhood scene of being shamed by a parent for lying. Through EMDR, they revisit that moment while anchoring in self-compassion, discovering that their compulsion to confess was not about sin, but about wanting to remain lovable.  The ritual that once maintained disconnection becomes a gateway to connection - with self, others, and the present.

In this way, Mindful Flow offers both a theoretical and practical map for working with OCD. Flow’s balance between challenge and skill is enacted through graded exposure and value-guided choice; mindfulness provides the witnessing awareness that prevents re-identification with the compulsion; and value congruence ensures that each step aligns with what truly matters, restoring coherence to action.

Over time, the person learns that safety does not lie in perfection or ritual, but in coherence - the capacity to remain present and responsive amid imperfection. Each moment of mindful restraint, each act of compassion toward one’s own suffering, becomes an upward movement along the Spiral.

5. Panic - The Fragmented Present and the Fear of Surrender

Panic represents a catastrophic dysregulation of the Spiral - a sudden collapse of the container that normally holds the rhythm between connection and disconnection, expansion and contraction.  Unlike generalised anxiety, which anticipates a possible future threat, panic is the terror of the immediate present: the body’s alarm system firing at full intensity while the mind struggles to locate danger or control. In evolutionary terms, panic reflects the activation of the most primitive survival circuitry - the amygdala hijacking higher cortical functions in what feels like an imminent life-or-death event (LeDoux, 2015).

From a psychological perspective, the person experiencing panic is caught in an intense feedback loop between bodily arousal and catastrophic interpretation. The heart races, breathing shortens, and muscles tremble; these sensations, usually background processes, suddenly erupt into awareness. The person thinks, “Something is terribly wrong - am I having a heart attack?” The more they monitor these sensations, the stronger the fear becomes. This “fear of fear” loop maintains the attack, convincing the mind that danger is escalating even as no real threat exists. A part of the person may know, intellectually, that panic has occurred before and passed, yet the body does not believe it. In this moment, Truth - the ability to perceive reality accurately - is lost to the immediacy of survival.

Within the archetypal framework, panic can be understood as Courage inverting into its most extreme shadow: not ordinary fear but existential terror - the total collapse of agency. Truth becomes impossible to discern as reality fragments; Love, the connecting force, splinters into frantic seeking for external rescue or withdrawal into isolation. The person oscillates violently through the Drama Triangle - the Victim (“I’m dying”), the Persecutor (attacking oneself for being “weak”), and the Rescuer (frantically seeking escape or reassurance). These roles are not pathological but protective: they each attempt, in their own way, to restore safety when the nervous system perceives annihilation.

Yet panic also offers a doorway to transformation. Within the Empowerment Triangle, these same archetypal energies can reorganise:

• The Victim evolves into the Creator, who recognises that fear can be met rather than obeyed.

• The Persecutor transforms into the Challenger, revealing truths that demand attention but no longer dominate awareness.

• The Rescuer matures into the Coach, offering compassion and guidance from within rather than chasing safety outside.

  
  

In this way, the chaotic contraction of panic becomes an invitation for consciousness to reorient - from fragmentation to presence, from reactive fear to integrated Courage.

Within IFS, each role in the Drama Triangle can be understood as a part - a frightened inner protector or exile reacting to perceived threat. The Victim carries helplessness from early experiences of being overwhelmed; the Persecutor internalises a harsh, shaming voice once meant to enforce control; and the Rescuer embodies the impulse to manage others to regain safety. In panic, these parts flood the system simultaneously, and the Self - our centre of grounded awareness - temporarily loses leadership.

Therapeutically, the task is to help the client re-establish internal coherence: to meet each part with Compassion and restore the Self’s capacity to lead. The therapist’s attuned presence models this inner Coach role, offering the felt sense of “You are safe now; you can stay with this.” Through such co-regulation, Love becomes internalised not as rescue but as presence.

Mindful Flow reframes panic not as pathology but as a crisis of containment - a surge of life energy that has lost its grounding in Love (self-compassion) and its orientation in Truth (knowledge and trust that they are safe). The task is not to eliminate arousal but to restore oscillation: to teach the organism that intensity can be felt without annihilation, that energy can move through rather than against. The paradox of panic recovery is that healing begins not by fighting the sensations, but by surrendering safely to them. Therefore, therapeutic interventions involve three movements: grounding in Truth (present-moment awareness), mobilising Courage (willingness to be with uncertainty), and reconnecting with Love (compassion for one's struggle). This is not about eliminating arousal but about learning to surf its waves rather than being crashed by them. A crucial therapeutic reframe involves recognising panic as Courage’s shadow expression of the fight-flight, fawn survival response. 

Practically, this begins with somatic grounding - what Polyvagal Theory terms ventral vagal activation (Porges, 2011).  Simple techniques like extended exhale breathing, bilateral stimulation (crossing arms to tap opposite shoulders), or focusing on sensory anchors (naming five things you can see, four you can hear, three you can touch) help regulate the nervous system. These are not just coping strategies but practices that restore the oscillation between sympathetic activation and parasympathetic calming.

For example, a client whose panic attacks began “out of nowhere.” Even minor physical changes - a skipped heartbeat, climbing stairs - would trigger a wave of terror. Through psychoeducation and gradual exposure, she learned to reinterpret her sensations: racing heart not as danger but as energy. Using somatic grounding and bilateral stimulation, she could stay present long enough to notice the rise and fall of intensity. Later, trauma-focused work (EMDR) revealed that her first panic episode followed a medical emergency in childhood when she truly couldn’t breathe. Processing that memory while anchored in present safety allowed her nervous system to distinguish past from present. Over time, each surge of panic became an opportunity to practise staying connected rather than escaping - transforming fear into embodied Courage.

The upward spiral from panic follows a path from fear through self-compassion, trust, recognition, responsibility, etc. Each panic attack survived becomes evidence of resilience. The client learns that intense sensation, while uncomfortable, is not dangerous - that they can remain present even in the storm. This builds what might be called "distress tolerance," but more accurately represents an expansion of the window of tolerance (Siegel, 1999).

6. Social Anxiety - The Fear of Truth in Relationship

Social anxiety exposes the interpersonal dimension of the Spiral's shadow dynamics - the terror of being seen, known, and inevitably judged as insufficient. Unlike generalised anxiety, which fears nebulous future threats, social anxiety focuses specifically on the danger of exposure in relationships: that others will perceive our authentic self and find it wanting. This fear drives a painful paradox - we simultaneously crave connection and defend against it, yearning to belong while convinced we don't deserve to.

From an evolutionary perspective, social anxiety represents a hypervigilant response to the threat of social exclusion - a danger that, for our ancestors, literally meant death (Gilbert, 2001). To be cast out from the tribe, to lose one's place in the social hierarchy, threatened survival itself. This ancient programme, designed to ensure social cohesion through sensitivity to rank and reputation, becomes unhelpful in modern contexts where the "tribes" are multiple, fluid, and often anonymous.

Within the Drama Triangle, social anxiety creates a complex internal choreography. The inner Victim believes "I'm not enough, I don't belong," while the inner Persecutor attacks with preemptive self-criticism: "They'll see how awkward/stupid/boring you are." The Rescuer manifests as people-pleasing, perfectionism, or avoidance - strategies to manage the unbearable anxiety of authentic encounter. These strategies form a self-reinforcing system: the more one tries to control how others see them, the less genuine connection is possible. The result is what might be called performative relating - interactions driven by impression management rather than authentic presence.

In Spiral terms, social anxiety represents a profound distortion of Recognition - the developmental value that emerges from Truth. Recognition is the experience of being seen as we are. When distorted, this becomes a hunger for validation rather than mutual seeing - a search for approval of the mask rather than acceptance of the self. Truth becomes impossible when we're hiding; Courage collapses into avoidance or overcompensation; Love cannot flow when we're convinced we're unlovable.

The phenomenology of social anxiety reveals a profound disturbance in intersubjectivity - the felt sense of existing in the awareness of others (Fuchs, 2013). The person feels perpetually on stage, scrutinised by an imagined audience that is invariably critical. They think about what others might be thinking about what they are thinking, a recursive loop of meta-social cognition that makes spontaneity impossible. This is not vanity but hyper-attunement gone awry - the gift of sensitivity turned against itself.

Mindful Flow reframes social anxiety as misdirected relational intelligence: the same attunement that fuels fear can, when integrated, become empathy and resonance. The task is not to suppress sensitivity but to cultivate an inner anchor - an awareness strong enough to hold connection without collapsing under it.

From the Empowerment Triangle perspective, healing involves transforming the inner Drama Triangle:

• The Victim becomes the Creator, taking ownership of how they wish to show up in relationships rather than waiting for others’ approval.

• The Persecutor becomes the Challenger, naming truths about fear, shame, or boundaries without attack.

• The Rescuer evolves into the Coach, offering empathy without self-abandonment - both inwardly and outwardly.

  
  

This shift from performance to participation mirrors the Spiral’s upward movement from Truth (facing fear of exposure), through Courage (showing up anyway), to Recognition (allowing oneself to be seen), and ultimately Connection (reciprocal presence).

Exposure could be seen as exercises in "graded authenticity" - tiny experiments in showing more of one's true self and discovering that catastrophe doesn't follow. This is practice in value-congruent relating. The client identifies what truly matters in relationships - perhaps honesty, creativity, or playfulness - and takes small risks to embody these values despite anxiety.

One client with social anxiety described feeling “invisible in plain sight” at work - present in every meeting yet unable to speak. Whenever it was her turn to share an idea, her heart raced, her mind went blank, and she defaulted to silence. The more she avoided speaking, the smaller and more disconnected she felt. Outwardly, she appeared competent; inwardly, she lived in a constant state of self-monitoring and anticipated failure.

Therapy began not with exposure tasks but with clarifying her values in relationships. She realised that what mattered most was collaboration and contribution - the desire to participate meaningfully rather than to appear confident. Guided by this awareness, she began small “experiments in authenticity.” Her first step was to say just one sentence in each meeting, regardless of how anxious she felt, reminding herself, “I speak because this matters to me.”

Each small act represented a micro-movement of Courage, not a performance test but an alignment exercise - what we might call a one-degree shift toward coherence. Even when her voice trembled or her thoughts stumbled, she stayed present to the value guiding her action. Over time, she noticed that the fear didn’t vanish, but it no longer dictated her choices.

She began to experience Mindful Flow not as the absence of anxiety, but as a subtle rhythm where awareness, intention, and action moved together. The focus shifted from “How well am I doing?” to “Am I connected to what matters right now?” That orientation - Truth in awareness, Courage in expression, and Love in self-acceptance - allowed her to participate authentically. Mindful Flow, in this sense, was not about confidence or performance, but about the quiet vitality that arises whenever we act from integrity, even with shaky hands and a racing heart.

The transformation of social anxiety follows the Spiral’s upward movement - from Truth (acknowledging the fear of being seen) through Courage (showing up despite it), Compassion (meeting one’s vulnerability with kindness), Justice (discerning what is genuinely one’s responsibility versus internalised shame), and Responsibility (choosing to act in alignment with values rather than avoidance). From here, the movement extends into Forgiveness (releasing the self-criticism that once maintained paralysis), Recognition (being seen and accepted in one’s authenticity), Gratitude (for the capacity to connect), and finally Love - genuine intimacy and presence with self and others. The client learns that recognition - true recognition - is not about being perfect but about being real; that others are not seeking our performance but our presence.

EMDR can be particularly powerful for social anxiety rooted in early experiences of shame or humiliation. One client traced his social anxiety to a childhood incident where he'd been laughed at for saying something inappropriate in class. Through bilateral processing, he revisited this memory while holding self-compassion, recognising the courage and spontaneity of that young boy. The memory transformed from evidence of defectiveness into evidence of authenticity. This reappraisal, lived somatically, restored Recognition - he could now see that what once caused shame had always been a sign of genuineness and individuality.

As social anxiety heals, the person discovers that the very sensitivity that once produced fear of ridicule can become a gateway to empathy and connection. Their attunement to others becomes strength rather than liability - a bridge between minds rather than a wall of self-consciousness. Within the Empowerment Triangle, the Coach arises from the Rescuer’s shadow - no longer managing others’ perceptions but nurturing mutual authenticity. The Challenger emerges from the Persecutor - able to name truth without hostility. And the Creator stands in the place of the Victim - free to initiate connection grounded in self-recognition rather than fear.

This is part 2 of Mindful Flow in Clinical Contexts: Applying the Archetypal Spiral. The next blog (part 3 ) will cover Relational Patterns, ADHD and Addictions.

References

Gilbert, P. (2001). The evolution of social anxiety: The role of self-criticism and social rank. In Social anxiety and its treatment (pp. 79–97). Routledge.

LeDoux, J. (2015). Anxiety: From the brain to the body. Current Biology, 25(7), R313–R322.

Maté, G. (2012). In the realm of hungry ghosts. North Atlantic Books.

Parnell, L. (2013). Attachment-focused EMDR: Healing relational trauma. W. W. Norton.

Parnell, L. (2019). Rewiring the addicted brain with EMDR-based treatment. W. W. Norton.

Porges, S. W. (2011). The polyvagal theory: Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation. W. W. Norton.

Schore, A. N., & Schore, J. (2007). Affect regulation and the origin of the self: The neurobiology of emotional development. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Siegel, D. J. (1999). The developing mind: How relationships and the brain interact to shape who we are. Guilford Press.

Visser, D., et al. (2022).

Fuchs, T. (2013). The phenomenology of social anxiety. In Interpersonal psychiatry: A guide to the management of mental disorders (pp. 75–91). Springer.