Mental health is becoming a mainstream issue with youth today. This does not mean there is more mental health problems in the 21 century but that we are more willing accept and adapt to mental health issues. According to the Canadian Mental Health Association, It’s estimated that 10-20% of Canadian youth are affected by a mental illness or disorder. Today, approximately 5% of male youth and 12% of female youth, between the ages of 12 to 19, have experienced a major depressive episode and In Canada; only 1 out of 5 children who need mental health services are receiving the help needed. From an educators point of view awareness of other is an important life skill to have but what about helping others. What is the point to of being aware of a student’s mental health issue if an educator is not doing anything to support or help the mental issues? Art therapy is a great resource that can be easily be adaptive into ones classroom to support positive mental health. The idea of art therapy based projects can help expose disturbances, pains, issues and concerns that students are dealing with. The overall goal of art therapy in schools is to help students come to grips with personal issues, accept themselves, accept others and for teacher to beware of the struggles their students are facing. Art therapy would be a large step towards supporting mental health in the school environment. People have been using art as a way to express themselves for thousands of year but it wasn’t till the 20th century when art was used in a therapeutic approach. Artist Adrian Hill coined the term art therapy in 1942 while staying in a sanatorium, recovering from tuberculosis. He connected the therapeutic benefits of drawing and painting while recovering. This inspired him to write Art Versus Illness. Hill discussed the value of art therapy and reflected on how it helped himself grow stronger then the misfortune he endeavored. Hill reached his theories on art therapy in British long term mental institution and solider hospitals. Fellow artist Edward Adamson became interested in Hill’s research and helped out by volunteering in a wound soldier’s ward using Hill’s methods. Adamson soon became an advocate of art therapy and helped Hill found British Association of Art Therapists in 1964. The relationship between art therapy and psychoanalyst is very strong connection. Sigmund Freud the father of psychoanalyst has theories that treating mental illness through his “talking cure” that has patients talking freely about what is on their mind. Freud believed that to be psychologically healthy Freud’s Stages of Psychosexual Development, mental abnormalities can occur if a stage is not successfully completed and person may become obsessed at a particular stage. The Stage theory shows how ones adult identity is determined by childhood experiences. For example in Freud’s Psychosexual Development in Adolescent ages 12–18 years, the last stage adolescent begin to sexual experimentation. When the Resolution is successful adolescents are full and satisfied with genital potency which leads to loving one-to-one relationship with another person. When unsuccessful in devolving into the last stage one may be impaired social and sexually in sexual relations or become neurotic toward intimacy. This does affects one identity and since the last stages starts at age 12 this affects Junior and Senior high school students. Stella A. Stepney discusses in her book Art Therapy with Students at Risk that identity issues is a huge factor on youth behavior, she quotes “1The concept of identity includes the quest for personal discovery, the resulting sense of “who am I?” and the growing understanding of the “meaning” of one’s existence. Identity also involves integrating into a coherent whole one’s past experiences, one’s ongoing personal changes, and society’s demands”. When one is stuck on a stage how can they have a fulfilled sense of identity? When using psychoanalysis a therapist may help a patient discuss intimate issues, some may even be suppressed. Art therapy is very similar expect for talking free one is creating freely. After the art is created a psychoanalysis approach is used to discuss the art. The benefits of creating art over talking freely in a school setting are that youth are more open to engage in self-expression visually rather than verbally convey in their feelings. Creating naturally has a psychological occurrence, whether its creating art to make a pretty painting or to express ones emotions there will be a reason for why one choses a certain color or why they depicted a subject in that type of stylization. This is the psychoanalysis aspect in art therapy which has similarities to Freud’s Unconscious Mind theory. Our memory like an iceberg what we are aware of is the tip of the iceberg and