The relationship between psychology and mussar always intrigued me. You have to understand that when I say "mussar", I do not mean that mindless variety of numbing, confrontational and ego-crushing harrangues to which many of us have been subjected in our yeshiva days. No, I mean a set of sophisticated teachings about the nature of the soul, properties of the mind, human behavior and self-knowledge, which is found in properly interpreted mussar literature. R. Israel Slanter started an entire field and he did it at the same time as Freud launched modern psychology.
One way to approach is how Dr. M. Levin approached it in an article in Jewish Action in http://www.morinis.ca/jewish_action_article.pdf . He lists and analyzes a number of ways in which Mussar and Psychology are alike and how they are also different. In this view, Mussar and Psychology are two related but distinct dsciplines, each with each own boundaries and methods. It also folows that each should jelously guard its own inheritance, its borders and purview and not transgress, or borrow, against the other.
There was a time when I thought of this topic in exactly the same way.
However, R. Ephraim Becker, an Israeli psychologist (see http://www.torah.org/learning/mussar-psych/), has completely changed my thinking on this subject. He argued, supporting his point here http://www.avakesh.com/2006/11/flexible_mussar.html that Mussar was not interested in the process, Mussar was interested in results. Of course, it developed certain methods to promote inner change; however, it was not wedded to them, and would gladly utilze other effective methods in pursuit of its goals. As such, Mussar would and should make use of psychological techniques, although its goals remain distinct from those of Psychology.
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