ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how the Polyvagal theory helps understand a child’s response to pandemics and plagues and the physiological mechanisms that may underlie the therapeutic powers of pandemic play. Polyvagal theory draws attention to a unique and paradoxical challenge that accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic, which restricted access to social relationships and opportunities for play, two primary resources used by children to regulate their stress response. This chapter explores how play provides children with a developmentally sensitive means through which they can ‘play with’ frightening events, in a way that aids mastery and wellbeing, both psychologically and physiologically.
