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.
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." Carl Rogers similarly wrote of "the curative force in psychotherapyman's tendency to actualize himself, to become his potentialities ... to express and activate all the capacities of the organism."
Abraham Maslow's theory
Definition
Maslow defined self-actualization to be "self-fulfillment, namely the tendency for him [the individual] to become actualized in what he is potentially. This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming." He used the term to describe a desire, not a driving force, that could lead to realizing one's capabilities. He did not feel that self-actualization determined one's life; rather, he felt that it gave the individual a desire, or motivation to achieve budding ambitions. Maslow's idea of self-actualization has been commonly interpreted as "the full realization of one's potential" and of one's "true self."
A more explicit definition of self-actualization according to Maslow is "intrinsic growth of what is already in the organism, or more accurately of what is the organism itself ... self-actualization is growth-motivated rather than deficiency-motivated." This explanation emphasizes the fact that self-actualization cannot normally be reached until other lower order necessities of Maslow's hierarchy of needs are satisfied. While Goldstein defined self-actualization as a driving force, Maslow uses the term to describe personal growth that takes place once lower order needs have essentially been met, one corollary being that, in his opinion, "self-actualisation ... rarely happens ... certainly in less than 1% of the adult population." The fact that "most of us function most of the time on a level lower than that of self-actualization" he called the psychopathology of normality.
Maslow's usage of the term is now popular in modern psychology when discussing personality from the humanistic approach.
History and development of the concept
Maslow's work is considered to be part of humanistic psychology, which is one of several frameworks used in psychology for studying, understanding, and evaluating personality. The humanistic approach was developed because other approaches, such as the psychodynamic approach made famous by Sigmund Freud, focused on unhealthy individuals that exhibited disturbed behavior; whereas the humanistic approach focuses on healthy, motivated people and tries to determine how they define the self while maximizing their potential. Humanistic psychology in general and self-actualisation in particular helped change our view of human nature from a negative point of view – man is a conditioned or tension reducing organism – to a more positive view in which man is motivated to realize his full potential. This is reflected in Maslow's hierarchy of needs and in his theory of self-actualization.
Instead of focusing on what goes wrong with people, Maslow wanted to focus on human potential, and how we fulfill that potential. Maslow (1943, 1954) stated that human motivation is based on people seeking fulfillment and change through personal growth. Self-actualized people are those who are fulfilled and doing all they are capable of. It refers to the person's desire for self-fulfillment, namely to the tendency for him to become actualized in what he is potentially. "The specific form that these needs will take will of course vary greatly from person to person. In one individual it may take the form of the desire to be an ideal mother, in another it may be expressed athletically, and in still another it may be expressed in painting pictures or in inventions."
One of Abraham Maslow's earliest discussions of self-actualization was in his 1943 article "A Theory of Human Motivation" in Psychological Review 50, pp. 370–396.
Here, the concept of self-actualization was first brought to prominence as part of Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory as the final level of psychological development that can be achieved when all basic and mental needs are essentially fulfilled and the "actualization" of the full personal potential takes place.