The concept of full remission as the goal of treatment in major depressive disorder (MDD) is becoming increasingly recognized. Investigators have increasingly begun to use remission as an endpoint, and the current National Institutes of Mental Health–sponsored study, Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression (STAR* D), views anything less than remission as treatment failure (1). Full remission is defined as the reduction of symptoms to within a normal range, while recovery also includes a return to premorbid levels of functioning (2, 3). It is becoming increasingly recognized that recovery from MDD should be defined as asymptomatic status, not response, and the most recent Canadian guidelines target full remission as the goal of antidepressant therapy (4, 5). In most clinical trials and in this paper, the term “response” indicates 50% reduction in depression scores, and the term “remission” refers to depression scores within the normal range (for example, the 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale [HDRS17] scores£ 7)(2).