Self-awareness is important for the personal and professional development of nurses, for developing an effective nurse-patient relationship and for improving nursing abilities. Despite its importance in nursing and therapeutic nurse-patient relationship and its evolving nature, the knowledge base for self-awareness in nursing remains under-examined.This review delineated theoretical, educational and personal strategies for nurses to improve their self-awareness and indicated that engagement in self-awareness at relational and contextual levels is essential for developing nurse-patient relationship.Self-awareness has long been addressed as fundamental for the professional nurse with the accepted view that self-awareness will lead to greater competence. Therefore, it is important to understand the historical evolution of the concept, attributes, antecedents, and consequences. Rodgers’ evolutionary method was used for critical analysis of nursing, social sciences, and education literature. Analysis indicates that self-awareness is a dynamic, transformative process of self. Ultimately, self-awareness is the use of self-insights and presence knowingly to guide behavior that is genuine and authentic to create a healing interpersonal environment. Future research areas within practice and education are identified.