Gjabolla has been suffering from a terrible fear of lightning for some time now. Whenever there are storms in the weather forecast, she gets very upset and plans on spending the duration of that time in her basement. She has even called in sick to work to avoid going out during a bad thunderstorm. How long would these symptoms have to persist before a diagnosis of a specific phobia could be made?

6 months

Explanation:

A phobia can be described as a condition in which a person faces severe anxiety for a certain event or object that he observes. The person might behave irrationally when he/she observes the fearful event or object. Although a person completely understands that he is behaving irrationally after encountering the problematic situation, however he cannot control himself at the time when he experiences the situation. Psychologists diagnose phobia when a person continuously fears a situation for more a period of six or more months.

weathering is the answer.