CLINICAL DEPRESSION

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does clinical depression mean? 

• CLINICAL DEPRESSION (noun)
  The noun CLINICAL DEPRESSION has 1 sense:

1. a state of depression and anhedonia so severe as to require clinical intervention

  Familiarity information: CLINICAL DEPRESSION used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CLINICAL DEPRESSION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A state of depression and anhedonia so severe as to require clinical intervention

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

clinical depression; depression; depressive disorder

Hypernyms ("clinical depression" is a kind of...):

affective disorder; emotional disorder; emotional disturbance; major affective disorder (any mental disorder not caused by detectable organic abnormalities of the brain and in which a major disturbance of emotions is predominant)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "clinical depression"):

agitated depression (a state of clinical depression in which the person exhibits irritability and restlessness)

anaclitic depression (severe and progressive depression in infants who lose their mother and do not get a suitable substitute)

dysthymia; dysthymic depression (mild chronic depression)

endogenous depression (a state of depression for which there is no apparent precipitating cause)

exogenous depression; reactive depression (an inappropriate state of depression that is precipitated by events in the person's life (to be distinguished from normal grief))

major depressive episode ((psychiatry) a state of depression with all the classic symptoms (anhedonia and lethargy and sleep disturbance and despondency and morbid thoughts and feelings of worthlessness and sometimes attempted suicide) but with no known organic dysfunction)

neurotic depression (a term used for any state of depression that is not psychotic)

psychotic depression (a state of depression so severe that the person loses contact with reality and suffers a variety of functional impairments)

retarded depression (a state of clinical depression in which the individual is lethargic and slow to initiate action)

 Context examples 

Mothers who experience a persistently low or negative mental state due to clinical depression tend to have less interaction with their baby.

(Mothers’ and babies’ brains ‘more in tune’ when mother is happy, University of Cambridge)