Much of a person's energy is spent in the effort of becoming a productive member of to-day's complex society. This activity may cause tension, and chronic unrelieved tension is an influential factor in blood pressure elevation. The problem of this study was to identify manifest needs and self-actualization of patients with essential hypertension, and to analyse and compare their manifest needs and selt-actualization with the selected general characteristics of We, sex, religion, occupation and level of education with a control group of patients with normal blood pressure readings. The purpose was to contribute to the planning of nursing interventions toward reducing the impact of complex psycho-somatic factors on the anxiety of patients with essential hypertension. The instruments used included selected items from the Edwards (1959) Personal Preference Schedule (EPPS) as adapted by Hwang (1965) and from the Personal Orientation Inventory (POI) (Shostrom 1964, 1974) adapted by Kim and Lee (1977) to measure manifest needs and self-actualization. The convenience sample was chosen from 149 persons who presented themselves for general physical examinations at Ewha University Medical Centre and 41 patients diagnosed with essential hypertension at three general hospitals in Seoul during June 1 and August 31, 1977. Forty-nine persons from the Ewha group with blood-pressure readings exceeding 150/90 were added to the experimental group. Data were analysed by the S.P.S.S. computer programme using t-test and tests for statistical significance. Statistically significant findings were as follows: A. Blood Pressure and Manifest Needs. 1. with the exception of Autonomy, patients with hypertension had significantly high scores on all variables Abasement, Achievement, Affiliation, Aggression, Dominance, Emotionality, Exhibitionism and Sex. 2. When mean scores of normal persons were compared by age groups, normal persons had higher scores in the following order on Abasement (50's, 40's, 20's, 30's), Achievement (50's, 30's, 40's, 20's), Affiliation (50's, 40's, 30's, 20's), Dominance (50's, 40's, 40's, 20's) and Exhibitionism (30's, 50's, 40's, 20's). In each case, there was a significant difference between the first and last age group scores. 3. When the mean scores of normal persons were compared by sex, normal men had higher scores than women on Achievement, Affiliation, Aggression, Dominance, Exhibitionism and Sex. Male patients had higher scores than female patients on Achievement, Dominance, Exhibitionism and Sex, but female patients scored higher in Emotionality. 4. Normal persons had higher scores related to religion in the following order on Achievement (Buddhism, no religion, Christianity). Hyper tensive patients had higher scores on. Exhibitionism (no religion, Christianity, Buddhism). 5. Normal persons had higher scores related to occupation in the following order on Achievement and Exhibitionism (unemployed, office workers, teachless, businessmen), Emotionality (office workers, unemployed, businessmen, teacher) and Sex (office workers, unemployed, teachers, businessmen). Hypertensive patients had higher scores on Achievement and Aggression (teachers, businessmen, office worker, unemployed), Dominance and Exhibitionism (businessmen, teacher, of ace workers, unemployed) and Sex (teachers, office worker, businessmen, unemployed). 6. Normal persons had higher scores related to level of edification in the following order on Abasement, Emotionality and Autonomy (secondary school graduation, university). Hypertensive patients had higher scores on Abasement (no education, primary, university, secondary), Achievement (no education, secondary, university, primary) , Dominance (university, no education, secondary, primary), Exhibitionism (university, secondary, no education, primary), and Sex (university, secondary, primary, no education). B. Blood Pressure and Self_Actualization 1, Patients with hypertension had significantly lower scores on all variables. 2. Normal persons had higher scores related to age groups in the following order on Existentiality (20's, 30's, 40's, 50's). Hypertensive patients showed no significantly different scores. 3. Normal women had higher scores than men on Time Competence. Normal men had higher scores on Feeling Reactivity. Male patients had higher scores than women on Self-Actualizing Value and Self-Regard. 4. Normal persons ha 1 higher scores related to religion on spontaneity (Buddhism, no religion, Christianity). Hypertensive patients had higher scores on Time Competence and Nature of Man (Buddhism, Christianity, no religion). 5. Normal persons had higher scores related to occupation in the following order on Existentiality (teachers, office workers, businessmen, unemployed) and Self-Regard (unemployed, office workers, teachers, businessmen). Hypertensive patients showed no significantly different scores. 6. Normal persons had higher scores related to level of education in the following order on Existentiality and Self-Acceptance (university, secondary). Hypertensive patients had higher scores on inner-Director (university, secondary, no education, primary) and Existentiality (university, secondary, primary, no education). Recommendations for nursing interventions with hypertensive patients with emotional problems or low self-actualization were made. 1. The nurse should encourage the patient through her interactions with other members of the medical team to accept counselling and health education. 2. Through her therapeutic interpersonal relationships with the patient, the nurse should help him discover the causes of his emotional tension. 3. Through her health teaching with the family, the nurse should encourage them to participate with the medical team in the patient's therapeutic plan and in providing him with the minimum possible emotional support. 4. Through frequent counselling with the obsessive-thinking and inflexible patient, the nurse should reevaluate the patient's behaviour and her interventions. 5. Seriously ill patients should be given needed reeducation by members of the professional medical team.