In this article we describe the formal reflexive Spanish construction pasarse + dative case in the frame of Cognitive Linguistics. This study characterizes the descriptive tools derived from this approach, such as image schemes and conceptual metaphor, with an emphasis in the analysis of force dynamics. In this description we posit an image scheme as spatial meaning, the components of which are systematically projected to other domains in order to create metaphorical meanings that share the same syntactic pattern. This article shows that this construction has a stable meaning that contributes the significant nuance of lack of control to the different meanings, which is explained by means of a particular force dynamics.