Besser-Siegmund, C. u. (2013). Mit Freude läufts besser - durch wingwave positive Emotionen fördern und Leistung steigern [With joy, everything gets better - promote positive emotions and enhance performance through wingwave]: Junfermann-Verlag.

“Motivated by the previous positive results of the wingwave method in case of the emotion of anxiety, we now wanted to know whether the method was also suitable in the treatment of a specific phobia, in this case, the arachnophobia, so as to achieve a significant reduction in the symptoms of the subjects.” 

For this purpose, a group of ten arachnophobes were examined at four different times of measurements. The first measurement (T1) took place one week before the intervention using the wingwave method, the second measurement immediately following the intervention (T2), the third six weeks later (T3) and the fourth measurement nine months later (T4). The subjects were divided among three different wingwave Coaches and each subject was given a treatment of one to two hours using the wingwave method. In order to be able to measure a possible success of the intervention, the subjects were requested, at three different times of measurement, to complete both the following arachnophobia questionnaires: The Fear of Spider Questionnaire (FAS) and the Fear of Spiders Screening Questionnaire (SAS) (Rinck and others, 2002).

The results of both the questionnaires demonstrated that the arachnophobes already experienced a significant reduction of their symptoms from T1 to T2, that is to say, the values in the questionnaires were significantly lower immediately after the coaching than before the coaching. Furthermore, it showed that this positive effect remained constant both over a medium-term period of six weeks (T3), as well as over a long-term period of nine months (T4). Due to the small number of arachnophobes, who were available for this study, no control groups were raised in this study. However, the results stood out so strongly than the ones, which could have been caused by a placebo effect. Therefore, the study demonstrated, at least, a strong tendency that wingwave represents a very effective tool in the treatment of arachnophobia.