Drawing on Jungian and Post Jungian Psychology as theoretical frameworks, the psychologically transformative properties of painting are explored as aesthetic process and aesthetic product in abstract painting. Consideration is given to precedents within modern culture and the arts in relation to mainstream and marginal practice, along with the concept of the Other as Outsider. Speculations on the idea of altered states of consciousness are explored in relation to different values (both cultural and a-cultural) and the primacy of imagination in the formation of affective relationships between self and world.