> My wife isn't alone in wishing that there was another word for "depression" of the sort
You won't be understood (my girlfriend is a psychiatrist, so I can guaranteed it's never used medically) but 'acedia' is a lost Latin word that corresponds well: it was the original word for the cardinal sin now known as Sloth, and was described as a profound and dark disease of the soul. How the sin changed is a fascinating piece of spiritual and theological history -- shifting the definition of sins from things that hurt you to things you can do something about. Now that clinical depression is something that offers potential treatment options, that debate might re-enter the rarefied spheres of moral debates.
You won't be understood (my girlfriend is a psychiatrist, so I can guaranteed it's never used medically) but 'acedia' is a lost Latin word that corresponds well: it was the original word for the cardinal sin now known as Sloth, and was described as a profound and dark disease of the soul. How the sin changed is a fascinating piece of spiritual and theological history -- shifting the definition of sins from things that hurt you to things you can do something about. Now that clinical depression is something that offers potential treatment options, that debate might re-enter the rarefied spheres of moral debates.