When Play Is the Best Medicine

Max Allain was like every other kid in a lot of ways. He loved to learn and be outside. But in second grade, Max was diagnosed with anxiety. In sixth grade, those feelings escalated.

“He was having trouble getting out of bed in the morning, he was losing interest in school,” Max’s father Jeff recalls. “He was upset a lot of the time.”

“He was really having a hard time just functioning throughout the day,” his mother Linsey adds. When Max began to have suicidal ideations, his parents knew they had to seek help.

Max attended the Children's Partial Program at Bradley Hospital, where Anne Walters, PhD, ABPP, clinical director of the program, and Gloria Davis, MD, led his care. The team became a safe space for Max. “He felt heard, he felt the kindness and the love and the warmth,” Jeff says.

Most importantly, the program allowed Max to do what kids love best: play. “For kids, their number one occupation is play. Play is so critical for the way kids learn about the world, express themselves, process, and recover,” says Christine Low, PhD, chief psychologist at Bradley Hospital. “Play allows kids moments of fun during an intense period of time, but it also allows for them to really enhance their treatment.”

Through group therapy, occupational therapy, and individual therapy, Max learned different sensory-based coping strategies. “It was really the first time that I saw hope in him,” Linsey recalls. “Even though he was healing…he also had fun.”

This gave Max the feeling of normalcy that he not only wanted, but needed, in order to learn how to handle feelings of anxiety and integrate coping strategies into his daily life.

Today, Max is thriving and learning to live—and play—with his anxiety. At a point of sadness and hopelessness in my life, Bradley swooped in and helped me recollect myself,” Max says. “To know that I am in control and that I have come such a long way makes me feel proud of myself.”

He adds: “If I could tell my [past] self something, I would say, ‘Anxiety is okay and you are amazing as you are and you shouldn't change yourself because of your anxiety.’”