That seems to hit the nail on the head, especially when it comes to "studying" the Bible. I have a friend who has long been a Preterist. I used to laugh at him for thinking such foolishness when we all "knew" what the Bible said..... since we had been told what to believe it said.
It took him 25 years to finally get me to actually do my own reading of the Bible, instead of just reading to "prove" what someone had told me it meant. But he finally got me to move beyond that stubbornly stagnant mental "time-out."