This proposed theory of motivation designates five sets of goals or basic needs: physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization (realization of potentialities and capacities), arranged in that order in a hierarchy of prepotency. When the most prepotent goal is satisfied the next ('higher') need emerges to dominate conscious life. The satisfaction of these needs is not altogether mutually exclusive. Reversals of the order of the hierarchy are sometimes observed. The basis of all psychopathology is the thwarting or threat to the satisfaction of any of these needs. A basically thwarted man is a 'sick' man. A healthy man is one who has no 'active, chronic' basic needs other than his motivations to actualize his fullest potentialities and capacities.

This theory is an eclectic condensation of many dynamic theories which