For approximately 60% of all depressive patients, acute therapy lasting eight weeks with an antidepressant does not result in full remission, even for patients with no previous indication of therapy resistance. Today there is a strong consensus that the foremost goal in treating depression remains nevertheless: achieving and maintaining complete remission and not settling for the 50%-remission required to fill the minimum criterion for response. This insistence upon remission is based on the scientific finding that patients who leave treatment fully remitted reach a higher level of functioning and can expect a better prognosis in terms of probability of relapse than patients who leave therapy still evidencing residual symptoms. This article discusses the potential advantages of systematic treatment algorithms to increase remission rates in depression.