Theories like those advanced by psychoanalysts such as Freud, Adler, and Jung, and more recently by psychologists such as Ellis, Perls, and Maslow, have little support in tightly designed research investigations, but they provide appealing explanations of human behavior and apparently useful directions for helping people. It is fair to say, therefore, that extensive experience with people coupled with insightful reasoning is regarded by many as a legitimate route to truth. Occasionally a notion will seem to burst out of a creative mind without the support of either observed data or careful reflection, and people will uncritically swarm to it. Somehow the idea just seems right. Werner Erhard's est or some of the meditation techniques might fall into this category.
People just give themselves to it because it seems right intuitively.
Christian counselors approach the matter of deciding what to believe very differently. Some depend on research support or clinical experience or tightly knit logic to defend their preferred hypotheses, but many appeal directly to the Scriptures to evaluate their ideas. They claim validity for viewpoints if they are taught in the Bible, and they reject ideas that the Bible contradicts. The Christian woman I mentioned earlier eventually questioned whether the practices of her primal therapist were biblical. When the woman asked the therapist about her concerns, he responded without ever looking at the text his client was quoting to determine whether his treatment violated any of Paul's inspired teaching.