Applying the Archetypal Spiral to Relational Patterns, ADHD and Addictions: Mindful Flow in Clinical Contexts (Part 3)

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 3 - covering Relational Patterns, ADHD and Addictions. Part 1 covered 1. Depression, 2. Generalised Anxiety and 3. Trauma. Part 2 covered 4.Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), 5. Panic and 6. Social Anxiety.

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.

7. Relational Patterns  -  Disconnection and the need for Recognition

Within intimate relationships, the Spiral of Connection and Disconnection becomes a shared field where two nervous systems, two histories, and two sets of adaptations meet and often collide. What manifests as "relationship problems" are rarely about the arguments themselves - both parties are playing out "template dramas", where each partner unconsciously casts the other in familiar roles from their own childhood experiences. The Drama Triangle becomes the choreography of the relationship itself, with partners alternating between Victim, Persecutor, and Rescuer in predictable but painful patterns.

From an attachment perspective, these dynamics reflect what Bowlby (1988) identified as internal working models - templates formed in early relationships about what to expect from others and ourselves. When two people with insecure attachment patterns meet, their defensive strategies often interlock in ways that confirm their worst fears: the anxiously attached person's need for reassurance triggers the avoidantly attached person's need for space, creating various destructive cycles - pursue-withdraw (one partner constantly seeks closeness while the other retreats, creating a chase that exhausts both), fix-withdraw (one tries to solve problems while the other shuts down, making the "fixer" feel rejected and the withdrawer feel inadequate), or compete-compete (both partners vie for who's working harder or suffering more, turning relationship into a contest where nobody wins)—that leave both feeling unseen.

The Rescuer - Victim Dance: When Solutions Become the Problem

David describes a recurring pattern with his partner Alex: "Whenever Alex comes home stressed about work, I immediately go into problem-solving mode. I'll spend an hour analysing the situation, suggesting strategies, even researching forums online. But instead of being grateful, Alex gets more upset, says I'm not listening, and storms off. Then I'm left feeling frustrated and unappreciated - I'm trying so hard to help, but nothing I offer is good enough."

Alex's perspective: "I just need to vent after a terrible day. But David immediately goes into fixing mode, like I'm too incompetent to handle my own problems. His solutions make me feel worse - like my emotions are inconvenient problems to be solved and he doesn't want to listen and empathise. When I tell him I don't want solutions, he acts wounded, like I'm rejecting his love."

Within the Drama Triangle, David has adopted the Rescuer role, unconsciously casting Alex as Victim - someone who needs his superior problem-solving abilities. But this rescuing actually persecutes Alex by invalidating her emotional experience. Alex then shifts into Persecutor: "You never just listen - you always have to be the expert and make it about your solution!" David becomes the Victim: "I'm just trying to help, but apparently I can't do anything right."

In this type of dynamic, there is a confusion between support and control. David learned in childhood that love meant being useful - his worth in the family depended on being the helpful one, the smart one who could fix things. His father, anxious and often absent through work, only showed approval when David appeared competent and in control. Now his nervous system equates others' anxiety with a mandate to perform his value through problem-solving. When his solutions aren't accepted, he feels rejected at the core of his identity.

In Spiral terms, David's courage becomes a compulsive action where he rescues by owning the responsibility for action (possibly acting out of shame). Therefore, he ultimately needs to develop compassion for both the protector part that rescues (seeking worth through usefulness) and the exile it protects (the young part terrified of rejection and abandonment). Both the Rescuer role and the vulnerable part it shields require compassion and recognition. His Truth-seeking (analysing the problem) bypasses compassion and justice (in terms of what he decides to own after he has learned to be compassionate with himself and to be able to meet Alex's emotional reality). Alex's need for recognition - to be seen and have her experience shared and validated - triggers David's inability to tolerate his own and others' distress.

The Recognition Wound: When Both Feel Unseen

Another pattern emerges in relationships where both partners feel unrecognised and taken for granted. Lisa works part-time while looking after two young kids all afternoon after school. Jordan works demanding full-time hours. Both feel they're carrying more weight than the other, both sharing household responsibilities and bedtime routines

Lisa's perspective: "I handle all the emotional labor - remembering birthdays, planning social events, making dr’s appointments, etc. Plus I look after the kids and do most of the cooking. He comes home, does the dishes, kids’ bath and acts like he deserves a medal. Meanwhile, everything I do is invisible."

Jordan's view: "I manage all our finances, handle every repair, work longer hours, and either clean the kitchen or get the kids ready for bed. But there's always something more I should have done. No matter how much I contribute, it's never enough. Doesn't she see how exhausted I am and how much I give?"

This represents a mutual recognition crisis. Both partners are giving what they know how to give while feeling unseen for their contributions. They're trapped in competitive suffering - each building a case for why their burden is heavier and their exhaustion more valid. This mutual exhaustion isn't just physical - it's the depletion that comes from performing for an audience that never applauds, from giving from an empty well while hoping the other will notice and fill it.

The underlying wound often goes back to childhood where recognition was scarce or conditional. Lisa grew up as the responsible eldest child whose contributions were expected but never acknowledged. Jordan was the "good kid" who learned that love meant never having needs, not being trouble. Now both are performing their worth on the condition of the other's recognition or approval instead of their own approval based on a clear awareness of the ongoing dynamics. Instead of working together in the same team with a good enough coach, they compete with each other.

Within the Drama Triangle, both alternate between Victim ("I'm unappreciated"), Persecutor ("You don't do enough"), and Rescuer ("I'll work longer hours so we can afford a cleaner"). The relationship becomes an exhausting competition where nobody wins.

A related form of disconnection appears in pursuer - withdrawer cycles, where one partner anxiously seeks closeness just as the other withdraws to manage overwhelm. The anxious partner's love is expressed through pursuit driven by a fear of abandonment, while the avoidant partner's courage to set boundaries turns into fight-flight. Each is protecting the relationship and themselves in the only way they know how: one by seeking reassurance of their love and that they are not going to be abandoned, the other by retreating and becoming easily frustrated.

Mindful Flow -  Restoring the Dance

Healing these patterns through Mindful Flow involves recognising that relationships themselves can enter flow states, moments of mutual presence where self-consciousness dissolves and genuine meeting occurs as if both were sharing the same reality while recognising their different perspectives of that reality, expanding thus their sense of one-ness and love for the other that makes this one-ness possible. The aim is not harmony without difference, but movement with awareness: learning to flow between connection and autonomy, speaking and listening, giving and receiving.

This requires what Schnarch (1997) calls 'holding onto yourself' - maintaining self-possession while remaining connected, knowing where you end and your partner begins without losing either boundary or bond.

Restoring relational flow requires cultivating three key capacities:

• Differentiation: recognising that Alex’s emotions are hers to experience, not David’s for him to fix or control. Lisa and Jordan realise that their worth doesn’t depend on outperforming each other.

  
  

• Mentalisation: understanding that each partner has an inner world as complex as their own. David’s fixing comes from care, not condescension; Alex’s need for space isn’t rejection; both Lisa and Jordan’s exhaustion are equally real.

  
  

• Value Congruence: aligning behaviour with shared values. If David values support, he learns to ask what support actually looks like for Alex, and Alex takes responsibility for communicating needs clearly. If Lisa and Jordan value partnership, they shift from competition and resentment to working together.

  
  

EMDR and Internal Family Systems (IFS) can help partners identify and process the younger parts or memories that drive these patterns, the moments where their Truth, Courage, or Love became their shadows. The withdrawer may re-experience being shamed for showing emotion; the pursuer may reconnect compassionately with the loneliness of being ignored. As these younger parts receive compassion within the safety of the therapeutic relationship, the relational field itself becomes more coherent.

The Upward Spiral in Relationships

The journey toward relational healing follows the Spiral’s path as a shared process:

• Truth: recognising the pattern - David: "I rescue through fixing"; Alex: "I experience help as control"; Lisa and Jordan: "We’re competing for recognition rather than offering it."

  
  

• Courage: taking the risk to act differently - David sitting in silence while Alex feels; Alex naming needs directly; Lisa and Jordan pausing their mental scorekeeping.

  
  

• Compassion: meeting each other’s wounds with tenderness rather than blame.

  
  

• Justice: acknowledging the fairness of both perspectives - emotional labour and practical labour both matter; neither invalidates the other.

  
  

• Responsibility: each owning their contribution to the pattern rather than projecting it onto the other.

  
  

• Forgiveness: releasing resentment over unmet needs and their own attacks while committing to new ways of relating.

  
  

• Recognition: seeing the other as a whole person rather than a role; David recognising Alex’s suffering and strength; Alex recognising David’s care; Lisa and Jordan recognising each other’s effort.

  
  

• Gratitude: expressing appreciation for what is given, not just lamenting what is missing.

  
  

• Love / Oneness: moments where connection flows freely - where giving and receiving, speaking and listening, self and other, become aspects of the same felt experience.

  
  

While these examples focus on intimate partners, the same dynamics appear in friendships, families, and workplaces - anywhere two or more nervous systems meet. Mindful Flow offers a map not just for love relationships, but for the daily practice of relational integrity.

Conscious Disconnection - Love as Letting Go

Sometimes, the Spiral of Connection and Disconnection reaches a point where movement toward Truth requires separation rather than further repair. Despite sincere effort, some relationships cannot be sustained without self-betrayal. When repeated attempts at reconnection collapse into the same painful loops, the system may be signalling that coherence now lies not in further attempts to repair but in release.

Truth is always about clarity and discernment, and in this case it involves the recognition that the relationship, as it is, no longer supports mutual growth or integrity. Courage is the willingness to act on that truth, to face the grief, uncertainty, or the guilt from the unintegrated parts that may come with change. Love is the container that holds the transition, transforming it from (self) rejection into recognition for what is real.

To end or redefine a relationship consciously is to honour it as a completed cycle in the Spiral. Connection, once distorted by survival patterns, is now allowed to reset and allow new ways of flourishing to manifest. The relationship's struggles do not need to be seen as failure. Sometimes the greatest act of love is recognising when holding on causes more harm than letting go where  staying would be primarily motivated by ego (fear and shame) rather than growth - when the relationship has taught what it came to teach and completed its particular arc in both lives.

The Spiral of Conscious Separation

The same archetypal sequence that guides healing also governs endings:

• Truth: Seeing clearly what is and is not possible between us.

  
  

• Courage: Facing the pain of loss without retreating into denial or blame.

  
  

• Compassion: Holding one’s own and the other’s suffering without trying to erase it.

  
  

• Justice: Recognising fairness - each has needs, limits, and a right to peace.

  
  

• Responsibility: Owning one’s contribution to the pattern and releasing projection.

  
  

• Forgiveness: Releasing resentment (towards self and other) to free psychic energy.

  
  

• Recognition: Valuing what was genuine, even if transient - and our own efforts.

  
  

• Gratitude: Appreciating the growth, love, and lessons shared.

  
  

• Love / Oneness: Letting go with wholeness - trusting that connection, at its deepest level, is never truly lost, and opening to a greater sense of belonging in life’s unfolding.

Case Vignette: Parting with Integrity

Sophie and Amir came to therapy after years of escalating conflict. Both had worked hard to repair the relationship - couples therapy, self-help books, taking time apart, but the same issues kept resurfacing: Sophie’s longing for emotional intimacy clashed with Amir’s need for autonomy. Over time, her continuous attempts at closeness left Amir feeling suffocated and no longer attracted to Sophie, and attempts at space left Sophie feeling abandoned.

They reached a difficult but liberating realisation: they were both growing, just not in the same direction. Their values - honesty, respect, care - remained intact, but their life paths no longer aligned. They recognised that each other's growth now required separation, and that Amir might find someone more independent and Sophie might find someone who would feel more valued and loved when providing the closeness that she craved.

Through EMDR and mindfulness-based reflection, they processed the grief of letting go  - revisiting memories of love and disappointment alike. As they named their shared truth, a gentler energy emerged. They no longer spoke as adversaries blaming each other for their problems, but as two people honouring what had been and wishing each other well.

As they separated, rather than feeling bitter, Amir felt that he could love her better from a distance, and Sophie started to learn to feel whole for the first time in years as she started going out with friends and dating again. They both saw that neither had failed - it was about recognising their limits.

This exemplifies love as letting go - a journey through gratitude, recognition, forgiveness, responsibility, fairness, compassion and courage revealing a felt sense of the truth that their new path is the right path.

When Children Are Involved: Love as Ethical Discernment

When separation involves children, the movement through the Spiral acquires additional dimensions of responsibility. The question is no longer about What serves my truth? but What serves the coherence of the whole system?

Sometimes, staying, if conflict is manageable and respect remains, it can be a conscious act of love and responsibility. Parents may choose to hold their own unmet needs with compassion so that their children can internalise stability and trust. This kind of staying is not stagnation and fragmentation, but Mindful Flow within constraint, where adults model self-regulation, cooperation, and value-based action even amid difficulty.  It involves recognising and grieving their unmet needs in exchange for better meeting the needs of their children.

At other times, remaining in a chronically hostile or emotionally barren environment does greater harm. Children learn not only from what parents say, but from how they live. A home that models fear, contempt, or disconnection teaches the child to equate love with suffering. In such cases, the most loving act may be separation grounded in truth and kindness, where both adults commit to collaborative parenting and emotional honesty.

As one father reflected after choosing separation:

“I thought staying together would protect my daughter. But she was learning that love meant walking on eggshells. Now, even though we live apart, she sees us respecting each other. I think that’s the first time she’s seen love without fear of triggering the other.”

Therapeutic Facilitation: Supporting Conscious Endings

In clinical work, facilitating conscious disconnection requires a balance of containment, neutrality, and ethical clarity. The therapist’s role is not to decide whether a couple should stay or part, but to help both discern where truth, courage, and love are felt more wholly. The therapist holds space for the ambiguity inherent in endings - that one can simultaneously feel relief and grief, guilt and liberation, love for what was and excitement for what might be.

EMDR, Internal Family Systems (IFS), and values-based inquiry can help clients integrate the parts of themselves that fear loss, shame, and failure. EMDR may target core beliefs such as “Leaving means I’m selfish” or “If I don’t fix this, I’m not-good enough” - transforming them into adaptive cognitions like “I can act from care and still honour myself.”

IFS complements this by identifying the protective parts invested in rescuing or clinging, and by inviting self-led compassion toward parts that long for connection or fear it.  Throughout, mindful flow serves as a stabilising framework: by grounding in awareness and values, clients can tolerate the oscillation between grief and relief, disconnection and renewal, as they feel more coherent with each other and themselves.

The Spiral Beyond Partnership

Ultimately, the Spiral brings us home to the same field that underlies all transformation - truth, courage, and love - but now with greater wholeness. In letting go of our own and others’ projections, we reclaim the energy once tied to struggle and open to the larger possibilities that life continually offers. What was confined within the personal system expands into participation with the wider flow of existence. Whether staying or parting, the movement is toward integration -  where fear softens into trust, shame into dignity, and presence becomes our natural state of belonging.

8. ADHD - Oscillation Without a Traffic Light: Re-Integrating Action, Attention, and Care

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity presentations are often described behaviourally (inattention, impulsivity, hyperactivity), yet at a systems level they reflect a difficulty coordinating multiple inner signals at once. Barkley's (2011) model frames ADHD through behavioral inhibition differences that affect downstream executive functions - working memory, emotional self-regulation, internalised speech, and behavioural reconstitution. These functions allow us to pause, hold goals in mind, plan steps, resist distractions, and return to task after interruption. While acknowledging neurodivergence as difference rather than deficit, these differences can create significant challenges when navigating environments designed for neurotypical processing patterns.

This present-focused orientation corresponds to "fast" life-history strategies typically associated with unpredictable environments (Del Giudice et al., 2015). Maté (2018) notes that while ADHD often correlates with early stress, the relationship isn't purely causal - early emotional disconnection may exacerbate neurodevelopmental vulnerabilities rather than cause them. Given ADHD's strong heritability (Faraone & Larsson, 2019), early stressors often reflect parents' own self-regulation difficulties, creating intergenerational patterns of dysregulation (Flores, 2024).

When this inhibitory process operates differently, the future-oriented planning system becomes desynchronised - multiple valid impulses compete without clear prioritisation, creating internal traffic jams rather than flow. The exception is hyperfocus on intrinsically motivating tasks, where attention locks onto positive reinforcement but may not align with broader life coherence.

Why Stimulants Help - And What They Can't Do Alone

Pharmacologically, stimulants remain the evidence-based first-line treatment for ADHD (American Psychological Association, 2013; Banaschewski et al., 2018). A helpful metaphor compares ADHD to a busy junction without traffic lights - thoughts, impulses, and sensations converge simultaneously, producing jams and near-collisions. Stimulant medication installs the lights to maintain a more ordered stream of thoughts and impulses. By enhancing dopaminergic and noradrenergic signalling in fronto-striatal circuits, stimulants improve the timing and sequencing of information flow, enabling working memory and inhibition to coordinate more effectively in alignment with goals and values (Volkow et al., 2011). Crucially, stimulants increase the signal-to-noise ratio in the prefrontal cortex, enhancing salience detection - the brain's ability to identify what's important versus what's merely interesting. Phenomenologically, this explains why "boring" but important tasks suddenly become doable: the medication helps the brain recognise their relevance despite lacking immediate reward, making future consequences feel more present and real. Obviously, medication can't teach prioritisation, planning, or value-based decision-making- these skills require psychological integration.

Psychological and Metacognitive Interventions

Evidence consistently shows that for adult ADHD combining medication with structured psychological support works better than either alone (Young et al., 2020). Solanto's (2010) research on Metacognitive Therapy found participants were over five times more likely to achieve meaningful improvement than those in supportive therapy. What makes these approaches effective isn't just teaching skills but helping individuals understand their own cognitive architecture- transforming self-criticism into self-awareness and developing compassion for executive differences.

ADHD Through the Spiral Lens

Within the Spiral of Connection and Disconnection, ADHD manifests as rapid oscillation between truth (seeing, focusing) and courage (acting, initiating) without sufficient love (integration, pacing, self-soothing) to coordinate them. The client is highly motivated (courage) but cannot hold the field of focus (truth) or extend love to the struggling parts.

Through the Drama Triangle lens, ADHD creates a vicious internal cycle: the Victim feels overwhelmed by demands, the Persecutor attacks with shame ("lazy, broken, worthless"), and the Rescuer either over-commits through hyperfocus or avoids entirely. This maintains two destructive loops:

Self-reproach spirals: The inner Persecutor's attacks deepen shame, which further impairs executive function, creating evidence for more attacks.

Autonomy collisions: The Rescuer parts resists calendars, reminders, or external structure - often interpreted by others as oppositionality but it actually stems from a need to protect a threatened sense of agency from perceived control.

In Mindful Flow, movement through the Empowerment Triangle can be consciously enacted:

• The Persecutor’s attack transforms into the Challenger’s curiosity (“What got in my way? What can I learn?”).

• The Victim’s helplessness becomes the Creator’s agency (“What’s one small step I can take?”).

• The Rescuer’s all-or-nothing approach becomes the Coach’s compassion (“We are learning, not proving”).

In Internal Family Systems terms (Schwartz, 2013), different parts compete: a Creator seeks meaningful engagement - through productivity (hyperfocus) or pleasure-seeking (avoidance) - while a Protector resists external control (rescuer) and an Inner Critic “protector” attacks when order collapses. Without a compassionate Coach (Love) to mediate, the system oscillates between overdrive and collapse.

Mindful Flow - The Traffic Control Officer 

Mindful Flow practice restores regulation by cultivating alignment of truth, courage, and love in real time. Three micro-processes operationalise this in daily life:

1. Shrink the frame (Truth): One-thing windows ADHD impairs cross-temporal organisation - maintaining awareness of future consequences while acting in the present (Barkley, 2011). Creating brief, bounded focus windows (10-20 minutes) helps working memory stabilise around single priorities. Success is measured by presence rather than perfection.

2. Commit a tiny act (Courage): The 60-second ignition Behavioural initiation is the hardest step. Breaking tasks into a one-minute "ignition" (open the file, write the title, stand up) activates approach momentum without triggering overwhelm.

3. Coach the parts (Love): Autonomy-respecting structure Replace "The calendar tells me what to do" with "The calendar expresses what I value." Introduce menu-based planning - each time block offers two or three value-congruent options (for example: write for 20 minutes / email replies / organise desk). The Creator proposes, the Challenger questions priorities, and the Coach maintains compassion: "We are learning (meaning making), not proving." Because choice is preserved, structure becomes a vehicle for autonomy rather than a threat.

The Mindful Flow Check-in

Regular check-ins anchor presence throughout the day:

Truth: "Am I doing what matters most right now?"

Courage: "Am I avoiding or approaching?"

Love: "How can I coach myself kindly when I drift?"

This simple ritual cultivates meta-awareness - the capacity to notice, pause, and redirect attention compassionately. Over time, it supports the "inner traffic officer" coordinating impulse, intention, and care.

As clients strengthen these three capacities, higher Spiral levels - recognition, justice, responsibility, and forgiveness - begin to re-emerge: the ability to discern fair limits, take proportionate responsibility, and release perfectionism. Thus, the practice at the base (truth, courage, love) restores function at higher levels.

Awareness and the Level 10 Witness

Varela, Depraz, and Vermersch's (2003) phenomenology of awareness describes a trainable cycle: suspension (pausing automatic response), redirection (turning attention inward), receptivity (letting fresh awareness emerge), and validation (confirming through action). Each cycle strengthens the capacity to witness and redirect attention without self-attack.

Within the Spiral, this represents Level 10 awareness - the capacity to witness all lower movements of truth, courage, and love and consciously re-centre them. While Level 10 represents pure witnessing awareness, ADHD specifically challenges Levels 4-6 (justice, responsibility and forgiveness) - the capacity to fairly assess responsibility, act within realistic limits, and release perfectionism. Metacognitive therapy cultivates this capacity behaviourally, while Varela's phenomenology reveals the felt experience of attention itself - how awareness moves, catches, releases, and returns.

Clinical Vignette

Henry, an entrepreneur with ADHD, alternated between nights of hyperfocus and days of paralysis. Any calendar entries felt like criticism and control. After medication stabilised attention, therapy focused on autonomy-friendly structure. Together we built a menu-based schedule - two to three good options per work block - and practised the Mindful Flow check-in every 30 minutes with a regular reminder on his watch.

During sessions, and through these check-ins, Henry learned to change internal dialogue from the drama triangle to the Empowerment Triangle: the Creator proposed ideas, the Challenger questioned priorities, and the Coach mediated with compassion. Towards the end of therapy he reported fewer shame spirals and a new sense of continuity: "When I forget something, I don't spiral - I just do the next 60-second thing, and have become much kinder to myself. 

Restoring the upward Spiral

Coaching in ADHD reflects a gradual movement through the Spiral - beginning with shame, where the mind turns against itself, and returning to love, where all parts are included in awareness. The journey begins with truth, the recognition of how one’s mind naturally moves and how neurodiversity shapes attention. From there, courage emerges in the willingness to take one small action despite doubt, and compassion follows as the capacity to meet lapses with kindness rather than attack. Justice brings balance, discerning what responsibilities are truly one’s own, while responsibility expresses this discernment through proportionate action aligned with values. As rigidity softens, forgiveness releases perfectionism, and recognition reframes effort as evidence of worth rather than proof of adequacy. Through this process, gratitude arises naturally - a quiet appreciation of coherence, of moments when awareness, intention, and action align. At its culmination, love integrates the system: a resting in acceptance of self as process, where truth, courage, and love flow together, guiding attention and care as one rhythm.

9. Addictions - The Hijacked Spiral: From Self-Medication to Self-Abandonment

The Spiral framework can illustrate how addiction is not a moral failing but a hijacking of the system’s natural movement toward connection and coherence. What begins as an attempt to regulate unbearable internal states - pain, anxiety, or the chaos of unintegrated attention (as with those with ADHD and addictions) gradually becomes a closed loop of self-abandonment. The substance or behaviour that once promised relief now deepens disconnection, trapping awareness in short-term, survival-based processing.

My doctoral research (Flores, 2019) supported this view: addictive patterns often serve as self-medication strategies for underlying distress. This aligns with Khantzian’s (1985) self-medication hypothesis and evidence showing that 50–70% of individuals with substance-use presentations have co-occurring mental-health conditions, and ADHD is present in 25–40% (Wilens, 2004; van Emmerik-van Oortmerssen et al., 2012). When neurochemical regulation is impaired, substances may appear to “correct” the imbalance: those with ADHD, for instance, often report using alcohol or cannabis to slow racing thoughts or induce sleep rather than to stimulate. Once medication or structured treatment restores internal regulation, the impulse to self-medicate typically declines (Wilens & Spencer, 2010). This relates to the concept of self-perceived fitness (SPFit - Newlin, 2002) - the subjective sense of being fit to meet life’s demands - which rises as internal regulation strengthens.

The Neurobiological Hijacking

Addiction co-opts the brain’s reward and learning systems that evolved for survival. Repeated exposure to substances releases surges of dopamine far exceeding natural rewards, initially producing pleasure but soon replacing satisfaction with relief - the avoidance of withdrawal or distress. Pleasure narrows into compulsive repetition: the person no longer drinks, uses, or gambles to feel good, but simply to feel normal. Over time, the prefrontal cortex - the region governing impulse inhibition and value-based decision-making - becomes functionally weakened, reducing the capacity for self-regulation and long-term planning. This mirrors the executive dysregulation described by Barkley (2011, 2015) in ADHD: a diminished ability to use internalised goals and self-talk to guide behaviour across time, which similarly undermines coherence between intention and action.

From a Spiral perspective, all three archetypal forces distort: truth collapses into denial and self-deception; courage into compulsive pursuit of relief; love into self-abandonment. The Drama Triangle becomes totalitarian - victim to craving and withdrawal, persecutor to shame, and rescuer to the promise of “just one more time.”

The Self-Medication Trap

Consider Sarah, diagnosed with ADHD in her forties after years of alcohol dependence. “Wine was my off-switch,” she explained. “It was the only way to slow my racing mind enough to sleep.” Initially, alcohol mimicked regulation - creating temporary calm where none existed. But tolerance grew; what soothed soon enslaved. As Maté (2008) describes in In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, addiction becomes the search for connection through substitutes for love and safety. For many with ADHD, that void is the absence of inner regulation: stimulants bring focus, alcohol brings quiet, cannabis brings pause. Yet over time these external regulators silence the natural rhythm of self-soothing and reflection.

From the Drama Triangle to Empowerment

In addiction, the Victim feels powerless before craving, the Persecutor attacks with self-contempt, and the Rescuer promises that the substance will make things bearable. Recovery takes place as these roles evolve through the Empowerment Triangle:

• The Creator acknowledges both pain and the possibility of meaning beyond the substance/addictive behaviour.

  
  

• The Challenger questions the illusion of control and names the true costs.

  
  

• The Coach offers compassion and celebrates small acts of agency - pouring one drink less, calling for help, sitting with an urge.

  
  

Mindful Flow in Recovery: Restoring Natural Rhythms

Where ADHD represents attention without sufficient inhibition, addiction represents inhibition overwhelmed by attention to craving. Both disconnect intention from values. Mindful Flow re-establishes rhythm by restoring awareness between impulse and action:

1. Expanding the pause (Truth): Creating space between craving and response through mindfulness practices. This might be just three breaths initially, gradually expanding to minutes.

2. Surfing the urge (Courage): Learning to ride the wave of craving without being swept away - what Marlatt and Gordon (1985) call "urge surfing." The courage isn't in white-knuckling resistance but in staying present with discomfort.

3. Nurturing the abandoned self (Love): Addiction involves profound self-abandonment in the pursuit of relief of physical (craving) and emotional pain. Recovery requires re-parenting the parts that were never properly held - offering the dysregulated system the co-regulation it sought in substances.

The Upward Spiral of Recovery

Recovery rarely moves in a straight line, yet its overall trajectory after integration is upwards: Truth - acknowledging the reality of addiction; Courage - asking for help; Compassion - meeting suffering without shame; Justice - recognising causes without excusing harm; Responsibility - acting within capacity and making amends; Forgiveness - releasing self-blame; Recognition - seeing oneself as worthy of recovery; Gratitude - valuing each day of coherence; and Love/Oneness - reconnecting with life itself.

Although these movements resonate with the 12-Step model’s spiritual arc - from admission to surrender to reconnection - the Spiral reframes recovery in embodied and ethical terms rather than in moral or doctrinal ones. It is not about repentance but integration: a lived re-alignment of truth, courage, and love, through which coherence naturally re-emerges.

Clinical Integration: Treating Addiction

The therapeutic approach integrates:

• Psychoeducation on ADHD-addiction overlap and executive regulation;

• Medication management where appropriate;

• Metacognitive and values-based interventions for planning and self-monitoring;

• Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention (Bowen et al., 2014);

• Trauma-informed therapy for attachment wounds; and

• Community or peer-support systems attuned to neurodiversity.

Case Continuation

Sarah's recovery began with finally understanding her ADHD. "I realised I wasn’t weak or a failure  - my brain was trying to regulate itself the only way it knew how." With medication stabilising her attention and DBT skills for emotional regulation, she gradually reduced her reliance on alcohol. Mindful Flow check-ins became her new “pause button,” helping her redirect courage toward value-aligned action.

Ten months later, she reflected: “I still have ADHD, and I’m still in recovery. But I can slow down now. I don’t finish the bottle - I think of my future self and how I’ll feel tomorrow. The chaos isn’t gone, but I’m not drowning in it anymore.”

Addiction and Trauma: The Collapsed Spiral

For many individuals, addiction overlays a history of trauma, neglect, or unresolved loss. The substance also becomes a shield against unbearable truths. Trauma disrupts the organism’s capacity for integration - what should be adaptive oscillations between connection and protection become rigid defensive loops. When the person later turns to alcohol, drugs, or compulsive behaviours, the aim is often to manage sensations and emotions that were once life-threatening to feel.

Within the Spiral, trauma amplifies disconnection at every level. Truth becomes dangerous: to see what happened risks re-experiencing terror or shame. Courage fragments - energy once available for agency is locked in vigilance or dissociation. Love, the capacity for self-soothing and trust, rescues through substance use. The person may therefore occupy several Spiral levels simultaneously: ashamed of what occurred (shame), self-blaming for not having “moved on” (justice/responsibility distorted), unable to forgive themselves (forgiveness blocked), and cut off from recognition and belonging (recognition and love collapsed).

Therapeutic recovery in such cases must move through all levels of the Spiral. It begins with truth - acknowledging both the trauma and the role of the addiction in surviving it.

Courage is the willingness to approach pain gradually rather than avoid it.

Compassion allows the self once blamed or abandoned to be met with care.

Justice involves recognising genuine victimisation without turning it into identity; responsibility then becomes the choice to by acting in line with personal values.

Forgiveness and recognition follow as the system re-integrates what was once split off.

Gratitude emerges not for the trauma itself but for the strength that endured it. Yet for some individuals, what is known as post-traumatic growth (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004) brings an even deeper realisation: that, despite the pain, they would not wish to erase what happened, for it shaped the person they have become. Finally, love - the capacity to remain present and fully open to one’s experience - returns as the foundation for coherence.

Only by addressing each of these layers can recovery move beyond abstinence toward true integration. Otherwise, sobriety risks becoming another form of control - a new avoidance rather than a renewed connection to life.

This is part 3 of Mindful Flow in Clinical Contexts: Applying the Archetypal Spiral. The next blog (part 4 ) will cover Narcisistic Patterns, Borderline Patterns and Complex PTSD.

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