The ever-increasing dependence on electrical power has posed more challenges to power system engineers to deliver secure, stable, and sustained energy to electricity consumers. Due to the increasing occurrence of short- and long-term power interruptions in the power system, the need for a systematic approach to mitigate the negative impacts of such events is further manifested. Self-healing and its control strategies are generally accepted as a solution for this concern. Due to the importance of self-healing subject in power distribution systems, this paper conducts a comprehensive literature review on self-healing from existing published papers. The concept of self-healing is briefly described, and the published papers in this area are categorized based on key factors such as self-healing optimization goals, available control actions, and solution methods. Some proficient techniques adopted for self-healing improvements are also classified to have a better comparison and selection of methods for new investigators. Moreover, future research directions that need to be explored to improve self-healing operations in modern power distribution systems are investigated and described at the end of this paper.