Postpartum depression (PPD) afflicts up to 15 % of women following childbirth and negatively impacts both mother and child. Therapist-assisted internet cognitive behavior therapy (TAICBT) is a promising intervention for the treatment of PPD; however, women's perceptions of TAICBT have not been examined. Responses to 10 open-ended questions from 24 women who received TAICBT for PPD were thematically analyzed. The majority of women expressed that the TAICBT program afforded flexibility, accessibility, and convenience, as well as anonymity and privacy. Some participants described the program as helping them take a step in the right direction and enhance their self-awareness and parenting skills. Participants also described having the internet therapist individualize their treatment. Challenges related to the TAICBT program were also identified by a minority of participants including managing time to log onto the program, the fast pace, completion of homework around childcare duties, and challenges of not having a face-to-face therapist. Participants also made suggestions for future programming. The large majority of participants consistently described their internet therapist favorably; however, challenges related to the internet therapy were also identified. Results should be integrated in the development of future programming.

Although emotion regulation modulates the pain experience, inconsistencies have been identified regarding the impact of specific regulation strategies on pain. Our goal was to examine the effects of emotion suppression and cognitive reappraisal on automatic (ie, nonverbal) and cognitively mediated (ie, verbal) pain expressions. Nonclinical participants were randomized into either a suppression (n = 58), reappraisal (n = 51), or monitoring control (n = 42) condition. Upon arrival to the laboratory, participants completed the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, to quantify self-reported suppression and reappraisal tendencies. Subsequently, they completed a thermal pain threshold and tolerance task. They were then provided with instructions to use, depending on their experimental condition, suppression, reappraisal, or monitoring strategies. Afterward, they were exposed to experimentally induced pain. Self-report measures of pain, anxiety, and tension were administered, and facial expressions, heart rate, and galvanic skin response were recorded. The Facial Action Coding System was used to quantify general and pain-related facial activity (ie, we defined facial actions that occurred during at least 5% of pain stimulation periods as "pain-related actions"). Reappraisal and suppression induction led to reductions in nonverbal and verbal indices of pain. Moreover, self-reported tendencies to use suppression and reappraisal (as measured by the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire) did not interact with experimental condition in the determination of participants' responses. Results suggest that consciously applying emotion regulation strategies during a painful task can moderate both cognitively mediated (e.g., verbal) and automatic (e.g., facial activity) expressions of pain.

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The results suggest that attending one 3.5-h workshop that is offered every 4 months is feasible and acceptable to patients and their partners. Furthermore, the SFQ proves to be a sensitive assessment instrument of sexual function for patients and their partners.