Self-acceptance involves self-understanding, a realistic, albeit subjective, awareness of one's strengths and weaknesses.
However, the need to know about and understand "the self" eventually became an important, underlying point in several psychological theories, such as: In addition to that, the life-span theories of Erikson and Neugarten mention the importance of self-acceptance including one's past life, and Carl Jung's process of individuation also emphasizes coming to terms with the dark side of one's self, or "the shadow".
[3] Some psychological benefits of self-acceptance include mood regulation, a decrease in depressive symptoms, and an increase in positive emotions.
The results yielded suggest that individuals categorized as self-fulfilling (as compared to the other profiles) tended to score higher on all the factors of Ryff's eudaimonic well-being dimensions (self-acceptance included).
[10] In addition to that, self-acceptance (and environmental mastery) specifically and significantly predicted harmony in life across all affective profiles.