Self-actualization

Self-actualization, in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, is the highest level of psychological development, where personal potential is fully realized after basic bodily and ego needs have been fulfilled. The highest level of psychological development in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is self-transcendence.

Self-actualization was coined by the organismic theorist Kurt Goldstein for the motive to realize one's full potential: "the tendency to actualize itself as fully as possible is the basic drive ... the drive of self-actualization."[1] Carl Rogers similarly wrote of "the curative force in psychotherapy – man's tendency to actualize himself, to become his potentialities ... to express and activate all the capacities of the organism."[2]

  1. ^ Goldstein, quoted in Arnold H. Modell, The Private Self (Harvard 1993) p. 44
  2. ^ Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person (1961) p. 350-1