This study places aesthetic theory at the heart of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The author focuses on the concepts of transformational experience, Bion's theory of thinking and the relevance of dreamthinking in maturational processes, linking these to aesthetics. He argues that the patient's development in psychotherapy deserves comparison with a work of art. The author discusses inner psychic beauty from philosophical, psychoanalytic and group analytic perspectives, and examines Freudian, Kleinian, Winnicottian and Jungian aesthetic theories. Arguing that the search for beauty is the primary psychic drive, he proposes that this drive is an essential ingredient in the recovery from trauma or psychic illness.