In my professional therapy work it is this deep trust and knowing that whatever so called negative emotions or destructive behaviours are present, they are actually the psyche trying to help itself. Even if these ways don’t work, and may even be damaging and distorted, the motivation is a good one, and once that is recognised and validated, the psyche will release with self compassion and find more appropriate ways to help itself, ways that are updated and actually work now.
So often the defenses that the psyche discovers in childhood are actually highly creative and effective at the time when survival is so important. What would have happened if these defences weren’t there then? Unbearable vulnerability? Insanity? Abandonment? So if we bow down and thank these defences, validate and understand them, they may come to see that although they were absolutely necessary then, they perhaps no longer have to protect in quite such an extreme way now, after all we are now an adult and can protect ourself in more potent and constructive ways, not available to us in childhood. When this is SEEN as an insight a psyche upgrade naturally gets activated.