Yes, antidepressants are not considered addictive by the same big pharma companies who told us that Oxycodone was not totally fine.

No, I’m talking about how researchers, who do not have conflicts of interest, have to say about these drugs.

What is the difference between a physical dependence and addiction?

Googling this will give you plenty of pages drawing the distinction between the two. For example, here’s a webmd article on the difference. In short, it’s meaningful to draw clear distinctions and definitions around where an urge is coming from. Withdrawing from a substance does not necessarily mean you desire the substance. Taking the substance to avoid withdrawal symptoms might happen because you wish to avoid the negative symptoms, and treating the symptoms could be enough to get someone off the substance causing problems. Addiction, on the other hand, is characterized by a strong desire to continue drug use despite the ways in which it is negatively affecting one’s life. It is possible for addiction and physical dependence to have overlap (and for many drugs this is common) but they are mutually exclusive - one does not necessarily imply the other and the presence of one does not mean there is the presence of the other.

If they aren’t addictive, but cause the same withdrawal symptoms which result from addiction, in some cases severely, then what should we call them?

While withdrawal symptoms can vary with the nature of addiction, one does not need to be addicted to experience withdrawal symptoms. Many common, non-addictive chemicals have withdrawal symptoms. Nearly every drug has some kind of withdrawal symptoms. Withdrawal symptoms are the direct biological consequences of a human changing their equilibrium with the addition of or removal of an exogenous substance or the regular use of said substance and the long-term biological changes it can have on one’s body.

At a high level, I would highly suggest you educating yourself on drug dependence and recovery as well as the psychology of addiction. These are high level basic concepts which are taught to you in any human-centered biology and psychology coursework.