The first inkling of the existence of Outsider Art emerged from the work of a few enlightened psychiatrists in the mid and late nineteenth century. Gradually it became clear that some psychiatric patients were spontaneously producing artworks - often on found scraps of paper - of unusual quality and power. Depressives are both negative and self involved and so, in trying to understand stigma, I have come to recognise the effect that depression has on those closely associated with me and for this I thank them.