This implies that people cannot change their emotional life simply by changing their current patterns of thinking. Recent tests have shown, however, that this assumption is false, and the wisdom of the ages is correct.
People can indeed overcome depression by changing their current thought patterns.
We can choose what we will think about, even though following through on the choice requires effort and is not always fully successful. We can select our goals, even though the goals are not infinitely flexible. We can decide how much we will agonize over particular events, though our minds are not as obedient as we would like them to be. We can learn better ways to understand the data of our objective situations, just as students learn to gather and analyze data scientifically, rather than being forced to accept the biased assessments we have tended to make until now. As of the 1990s, a depression sufferer usually can get relief with active cognitive psychotherapy, or with tested anti- depressant medications, or with both.