Weegy: The key to distinguishing a fear from a phobia is that that while most people get the jitters if a spider crawls on their arm, [ people suffering from arachnophobia - the fear of spiders - are physically and/or psychologically impaired by it.
"To be defined as a phobia, the fear must cause some level of impairment," says Wilson. "I had a woman come in who was afraid of spiders, and it got to the point where she wouldn't go out at night because she couldn't see where they were." source: webMD ]
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