“We can work wonderfully with people who find playfulness too silly,” say Birgitt Hölzel and Stefan Ruzas. © auen60photography
“Some couples forget that a relationship is a voluntary event,” say Birgitt Hölzel and Stefan Ruzas. They have been a couple for more than 30 years, both therapists and together they advise other couples as sweethearts and sweethearts. For them, happy relationships don’t happen by chance, but they also don’t last through occasional wellness weekends for two or a visit to the restaurant around the corner.
If you want to do something for yourself and your relationship, you should play, both tell the podcast hosts Melanie Büttner and Sven Stockrahm. In this episode they talk about their own happiness tips and why they prescribe micro-adventures for couples, invitations to playful couple experiences – the crazier and more unusual, the better.
The entire episode can be heard at the top of this page.
More about our guests and further information
The systemic couple therapists Birgitt Hölzel and Stefan Ruzas advise other couples as a couple and run the Munich practice Favoriten + Schatz. On the podcast On the couple level You can also talk to journalist Jan Tussing about love, sex, relationships and crises. Her book Peak mating season is a guide for parents to have more time together in everyday life. You can find out more about the two of them on their website and on Instagram. Psychologist Kay Brauer from the University of Halle-Wittenberg is researching how playfulness can have an impact in adulthood – also in the context of relationships (Journal of Research in Personality: Brauer & Proyer, 2018). Together with other researchers, he has discovered evidence that playfulness can also be learned and trained again (Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being: Proyer et al., 2020). The psychotherapist Esther Perel, one of the most successful relationship experts, also advises being more playful in love and relationships.
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More about the sex podcast
You speak every two weeks on the podcast “Is this normal?” about sexuality, relationships and love: The doctor and sex therapist Melanie Büttner (left) and the head of the knowledge department at ZEIT ONLINE as well as editor Health and Digital, Sven Stockrahm. © Julia Bradley for ZEIT ONLINE Do you know our book? Is that normal? Let’s talk about sex the way you want it
Follow the sex podcast hosts, the doctor and sex therapist Melanie Büttner and the ZEIT-ONLINE knowledge department head, Sven Stockrahm, on Instagram at @dr.melanie.buettner and @svensonst.
If you have a question or suggestion, send us an email to [email protected]. Or ask your question as a voice message and also send the file to the email address.
“Some couples forget that a relationship is a voluntary event,” say Birgitt Hölzel and Stefan Ruzas. They have been a couple for more than 30 years, both therapists and together they advise other couples as sweethearts and sweethearts. For them, happy relationships don’t happen by chance, but they also don’t last through occasional wellness weekends for two or a visit to the restaurant around the corner.
If you want to do something for yourself and your relationship, you should play, both tell the podcast hosts Melanie Büttner and Sven Stockrahm. In this episode they talk about their own happiness tips and why they prescribe micro-adventures for couples, invitations to playful couple experiences – the crazier and more unusual, the better.