Recently I find myself watching YouTube videos on how to make fires in the outdoors. I have no sense of why this activity currently interests me, but I am aware that my early experience of fire making made a lasting impression. I remember spending parts of my primary school holidays working with my father who was a hunter. When we stopped for lunch we would often start a fire to make a cup of tea, or dry wet clothing. Later in my teens I would make fires with driftwood on the beaches of the Manawatu-Wanganui region.
My YouTube searches could be seen as a longing for a past that was more closely connected to the classical elements of the outdoors. I also begin to wonder about my work as a psychotherapist, and the associations it may have with making fires.
Shelter from the elements is important in building a fire. We could visualise the psychotherapy room as a warm, dry, and protected space, in which there can be some reprieve from the turbulence of external events. If we come to therapy in a depressed state – which is often associated with dampness – it may be hard to imagine getting our internal fire started. To make a fire in the wild you must first gather a small amount of very light and dry material. Perhaps initially it is the job of the therapist to gather the tinder, or what I imagine as identifying the parts of the patient that are still animated; the tiny gestures, expressions, and actions that indicate the presence of hope. The spark that pre-heats this tinder may originate from the therapist as they hold this hope for the patient, or it may come from the inevitable friction felt between the patient and therapist as they come together.
The fire maker gently blows on the pre-igniting tinder until it combusts into flame. Then very small dry twigs are added. In this way the foundation of the fire slowly builds. As the fire builds bigger sticks can be added. In psychotherapy the working alliance between patient and therapist strengthens in a similar way. As trust and safety increases heat is generated in the relationship, and consequently the capacity to approach bigger issues is slowly increased.
In the video below Kap describes how gentle you have to be in starting a fire
“When you tap on it the gathering of the little particles start to move, and the finest one falls into the fire pot, and also allows the air in there… don’t over do it.”
In this video Survival Lilly shows her technique for building fires in the forest.