The purpose of this review is to reflect on the difficulties we nurses face in the selection, use and development of nursing theory that supports independent practice. The history of theoretical development is reviewed, beginning with the birth of disciplinary theoretical thought and extending to the generation of middle-range theory. Fundamental elgments for differentiatingbetween borrowed theory in nursing and nursing's own theory are clarified, and the aspects the author regards as obstacles to theoretical development are analyzed on the basis of nursing literature. They incnude the semantic and structural difference between the conceptual model and nursing theory, the use of nursing's own theory and borrowed theory, and emergence of the middle-range theory and its importance in nursing practice.