University Diaries » ‘[T]herapy is somehow everything and nothing, infinitely deep and shallower than a dry lake bed… [C]ommon-factors researchers, by measuring the benefit of therapy according to vaguest metrics, simply guaranteed a vague finding… [Thus we] live in a fun-house therapy world where the term “evidence-based practice” is still widely used to imply the superiority of treatments for which the evidence is poor.’

In the slough of Sunday in an August despond, when the gilded NYT reader (NY is by far the richest city in the world — over $3 trillion in private total wealth) pauses on the deck of her summer home to note the infinite recurrence of her personal sadness, an opinion piece about psychotherapy rises into view.

Though generous in its acknowledgement of the basic nothing/everythingness of this lucrative, universal practice (universal here means that everyone UD knows is and has long been engaged in it, with a few exceptions), and though willing to admit that psychotherapy seems to do nothing that a wise and intuitive friend or two can’t, the writer still aches after what he calls a “unified field theory” of the dealie. He insists it be empirical and organized into One Thing rather than everything everywhere all at once.

In short, the absolute mess of it, the desperation of sad Americans for it, and the inevitable overtaking of the … field? … by ever-new, ever-bogus, approaches, bothers the guy.

Excitedly, he announces yet another New Theory, and this one does the trick! It’s called predictive something, and is demonstrably, scientifically, good for what ails you!

Whew. It’s about time.

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Dr. Bernard Carroll, known as the "conscience of psychiatry," contributed to various blogs, including Margaret Soltan's University Diaries, for which he sometimes wrote limericks under the name Adam.
New York Times

George Washington University English professor Margaret Soltan writes a blog called University Diaries, in which she decries the Twilight Zone-ish state our holy land’s institutes of higher ed find themselves in these days.
The Electron Pencil

It’s [UD's] intellectual honesty that makes her blog required reading.
Professor Mondo

There's always something delightful and thought intriguing to be found at Margaret Soltan's no-holds-barred, firebrand tinged blog about university life.
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You can get your RDA of academic liars, cheats, and greedy frauds at University Diaries. All disciplines, plus athletics.
truffula, commenting at Historiann

Margaret Soltan at University Diaries blogs superbly and tirelessly about [university sports] corruption.
Dagblog

University Diaries. Hosted by Margaret Soltan, professor of English at George Washington University. Boy is she pissed — mostly about athletics and funding, the usual scandals — but also about distance learning and diploma mills. She likes poems too. And she sings.
Dissent: The Blog

[UD belittles] Mrs. Palin's degree in communications from the University of Idaho...
The Wall Street Journal

Professor Margaret Soltan, blogging at University Diaries... provide[s] an important voice that challenges the status quo.
Lee Skallerup Bessette, Inside Higher Education

[University Diaries offers] the kind of attention to detail in the use of language that makes reading worthwhile.
Sean Dorrance Kelly, Harvard University

Margaret Soltan's ire is a national treasure.
Roland Greene, Stanford University

The irrepressibly to-the-point Margaret Soltan...
Carlat Psychiatry Blog

Margaret Soltan, whose blog lords it over the rest of ours like a benevolent tyrant...
Perplexed with Narrow Passages

Margaret Soltan is no fan of college sports and her diatribes on the subject can be condescending and annoying. But she makes a good point here...
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From Margaret Soltan's excellent coverage of the Bernard Madoff scandal comes this tip...
Money Law

University Diaries offers a long-running, focused, and extremely effective critique of the university as we know it.
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The inimitable Margaret Soltan is, as usual, worth reading. ...
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I awake this morning to find that the excellent Margaret Soltan has linked here and thereby singlehandedly given [this blog] its heaviest traffic...
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As Margaret Soltan, one of the best academic bloggers, points out, pressure is mounting ...
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Many of us bloggers worry that we don’t post enough to keep people’s interest: Margaret Soltan posts every day, and I more or less thought she was the gold standard.
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University Diaries by Margaret Soltan is one of the best windows onto US university life that I know.
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