Counseling for academics and researchers in virginia
Online therapy with Dr. emily fornwalt
Photo Credits: Siora Photography; Unsplash
“how do i get it all done?”
“work-life balance - what????”
“am i the only one struggling here?”
You’ve Worked Your Whole Life to Get Here.
so why does “here” feel so empty?
the daily reality for overworked academics
You arrive on campus already thinking about the twelve things you won't get to today. Your inbox is a graveyard of emails you meant to answer last week. Your calendar is a solid wall of obligations with no white space in sight.
The pressure to be visible is relentless. You need to publish, not just anywhere, but in the right places. You need to present at conferences, serve on the right committees, maintain relationships with people who matter for your career. The work itself, the thinking, the writing, the teaching, keeps getting squeezed into smaller and smaller margins.
You've started dreading things you used to enjoy. The conference that used to energize you now feels like a performance you're too tired to give. The seminar where you once loved exchanging ideas now feels like another place where you might be exposed as less brilliant than everyone assumes.
Students look at you like you have answers. Colleagues treat you like a peer. Externally, you've made it. Internally, you're waiting to be found out.
Your personal life has become an afterthought. You're physically present at home but mentally still at work. Your partner has stopped asking when things will slow down because they've heard the answer too many times. You tell yourself you'll take a real vacation soon, but "soon" keeps getting pushed back.
At night, you can't turn off. Your brain rehearses tomorrow's obligations, replays today's interactions, generates new anxieties you hadn't thought to worry about yet. Sleep, when it comes, doesn't restore you.
Learn more about my approach to working with academics and researchers.
what productivity advice misses about academic stress
You've tried to solve this. You're at a competitive institution; excellence is what you do.
You've read about academic productivity, experimented with different workflows, attended workshops on work-life balance that felt almost satirical given your actual schedule. You've told yourself you just need to be more efficient, more strategic, more focused.
But efficiency isn't the problem. You're already efficient. You're already strategic. You've optimized everything that can be optimized, and you're still exhausted.
Here's what the advice misses: the issue isn't your time management. It's the relentless internal pressure to prove you deserve to be here. The fear that slowing down means falling behind. The belief absorbed somewhere along the way that your worth is measured by your productivity.
Those beliefs don't respond to better systems. They live in your nervous system, keeping you in a constant state of low-grade threat. Until you address them directly, no amount of optimization will help.
a therapist who knows academia from the inside
I'm Dr. Emily Fornwalt, and I work with academics and researchers across Virginia who are exhausted by the pressure to perform excellence.
I have a PhD. I've navigated the tenure track. I understand the particular strain of working in environments where "good" is never quite good enough, where the culture of achievement can become a culture of relentless self-criticism. You won't need to explain imposter syndrome, or the politics of your department, or why you can't just "take it easy."
I'm not going to give you strategies for being more productive. What I offer is the chance to understand what's driving the pressure from the inside—the perfectionism, the fear of being exposed, the patterns that were probably set long before you entered academia.
I use approaches called AEDP and interpersonal neurobiology, which means we work with your nervous system directly – the part of you that can't stop performing, can't stop comparing, can't feel safe even when you're succeeding – not just your thoughts about work.
I practice exclusively via telehealth, so whether you're in Northern Virginia, Hampton Roads, the Shenandoah Valley, or a small college town, we can work together without adding another item to your impossible schedule.
what recovery from academic burnout looks like
The imposter feeling fades. You stop waiting to be found out. When you walk into a room of accomplished colleagues, you feel like you belong there; not because you've finally achieved enough, but because your sense of worth is no longer dependent on external validation.
You work hard without being driven. There's a difference between choosing to invest in your career and being compelled by anxiety to never stop. You start operating from the first place instead of the second. The work gets done. It might even get better.
You tolerate imperfection. The paper goes out before it's perfect. The lecture is prepared, not polished to exhaustion. You discover that "good enough" is often genuinely good—and that the extra hours of perfectionism weren't adding as much as you thought.
Comparison loses its power. A colleague's success doesn't trigger a comparison spiral. You can admire someone else's work without it meaning anything about your own. You're clearer about what you're building and why.
You recover outside of work. Evenings and weekends feel like real rest, not just time you're failing to use productively. You take vacation without bringing your laptop. You remember what it's like to be a person, not just an academic.
You make decisions about your future. From clarity, not desperation. Whether you stay in this role, seek something different, or eventually leave academia, the choice belongs to you, not to your anxiety.
Counseling for researchers and faculty across virginia
I provide online therapy throughout Virginia for academics at every stage: graduate students feeling the pressure before it’s even fully begun, junior faculty watching the tenure clock, and senior faculty who have discovered that promotion doesn’t fix the underlying exhaustion.
Richmond • Virginia Beach • Charlottesville • Blacksburg • Norfolk • Arlington • Alexandria • Fairfax • Williamsburg • Harrisonburg • Lynchburg • Roanoke • Fredericksburg • Chesapeake • And throughout Virginia
our sessions will be
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Collaborative: We will work together to ensure our time is helpful; this won’t be just one more thing on your plate.
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Encouraging: You have genuine strengths beyond ticking the productivity boxes. You might roll your eyes when I point them out (I’ll allow it).
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Real: I’ll tell you the truth about what I observe — including the “truths” that are lurking at the back of your mind. Then, I will help you figure out what to do with them.
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Effective: I'm a PhD-level counselor with experience in tenure-track positions. You won’t have to explain it all to me.
Fun: I can pretty much guarantee some laughs (you can demand more humor when needed).
i’m Emily.
About dr. emily fornwalt
Therapist for academics, faculty, PhD students, and researchers in Virginia
I'm a PhD-level therapist licensed in Virginia (LPC; #0701013449). I earned my doctorate from UNC Charlotte and have spent years working in and around academic environments.
I'm a Level II AEDP therapist with training in interpersonal neurobiology. I've worked in community mental health, taught at the university level, and now see clients exclusively online.
I specialize in academics because I understand the particular way this career can overtake your identity; how achievement can become the only language you know for feeling worthwhile. I've seen how that plays out, and I've seen what changes when it starts to shift.
If you’d like to learn more about me than can fit in a short blurb, please explore the link below.
getting started
Investment: Sessions are $225 for 45-50 minutes. Initial sessions are 90 minutes at $450.
What to expect: Most academics begin to see their patterns more clearly within the first few sessions. Deeper shifts in how you relate to achievement and self-worth typically unfold over 6-12 months.
To begin:
Schedule your first session using the link below
Complete intake paperwork 24 hours before we meet
Show up—you don't need to perform here
Schedule Your First Session: Book Online | Call/Text: 423.281.4098 | Email: emily@alignedcounseling.com
FAQs, Logistics, & Instructions…
Here you can find detailed instructions on how to get started working together, how we proceed, and what you can expect.
First, important things to note:
I only work exclusively online and no in-person appointments are available.
I am not in network with any insurance plans and do not provide documentation for out-of-network reimbursement.
I offer primarily 45/50-minute sessions at a rate of $225 per session. If you’d like 60-minute sessions, please ask about my current availability. Initial sessions are 90 minutes and are $450.
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For intake sessions, I am available Mondays-Thursdays from 10:00-5:00. I am available for ongoing sessions Tuesdays-Thursdays from 10:00-5:00. I do not have evening or weekend availability. With regard to ongoing session availability, I cannot guarantee the availability of specific times or days based on openings you may see in my online calendar; availability there does indicate recurring availability. One of my values is to have some schedule flexibility for current clients so that when they need to make schedule adjustments, I am more likely to be able to do so. As such, an available slot does not equal the ability to put a regularly occurring appointment in that slot. If you have specific schedule needs, please reach out to confirm that I’d be able to accommodate them prior to completing an initial session.
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Once you have decided that you’d like to proceed with scheduling with me, you can mosey over and check out my lovely contact page. Here you can click the “Schedule your first session” button located at the center of the page. This will take you to my self-scheduling option. This allows you to look over my calendar and select a time that works for you. You can schedule up to 3 weeks in advance, as long as you are at least 3 days before the date you’d like to choose. It’s important to note that this first session will be a longer (90-minute) intake session.
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Scheduling in my online calendar will send a request for the specific appointment you’ve selected and reserve it for you. I typically confirm appointments within 24 hours, excluding weekends, holidays, and times I am out of the office on vacation. After I confirm your appointment, you will receive an email from Sessions Health.
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After you receive the confirmation, keep an eye out for three more emails. (I know! I bet you already get plenty, but I promise we just have to do this stuff once!) You will get an email welcoming you to therapy and outlining what you can expect; this will come directly from me. In addition, you will get one from Sessions Health and Aligned Counseling and Supervision; this contains your invitation to the client portal; this is where you will complete all required paperwork, which I need back 24 hours prior to our scheduled time in order to keep your appointment and avoid automatic cancellation. Finally, you will get an appointment “reminder” that will contain your telehealth link.
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Once you’ve set up portal access, you will have just three documents to review and sign. Please note that you can sign out and progress will be saved. You may want to set aside a little time to really read these over as they have a good bit of information relevant to our work together. Documents include: the informed consent, the HIPAA privacy practices, and information about my policies for electronic communication. Please let me know if you have any questions by emailing me. After signing those you will have some demographic questions and the opportunity to tell me just a bit about what brings you to therapy.
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Once you have set up your portal and I have a phone number, keep an eye out for a text from IvyPay. This is where you will enter your credit card information for me to charge for your sessions. I use IvyPay so that I don't have to personally handle any of your credit card information. IvyPay is a third-party HIPAA-compliant payment processor that takes care of it for me.
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Most clients are nervous the first time they attend counseling, even if it's just the first time with a new person. If you’ve never been before, you may not know what to expect and may have many TV or movie references for what it’s like. Trust me, they’re probably inaccurate. You may think you’re required to tell me ALL the things or that I will ask probing questions to get to the root of everything. That’s not what happens either. We will still be getting to know each other. In our first session, I will gather information about your concerns, the history, what you’d like to get out of counseling, and any other things you think are relevant. We will get a general idea of direction, but it will take us time to get to know each other. This one is a little different from the others, as a lot of our time will be spent getting me up to speed on your life and concerns. Things shift after that…stay tuned.
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It’s important to know that the completion of this initial session is not a guarantee of working together. If it ends up not working, I will do my best to help you find another provider to meet your needs. A few things that might result in us not working together include, but are not limited to:
You decide that we are not a good fit.
I am not the most appropriate person to help you with your specific needs.
You need a specific time slot and it is not available. (Avoid this by checking with me ahead of time!)
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Once you are ready to move forward, we will get your regular appointments set up. You will be scheduled for the same recurring time slot. These are either weekly or bi-weekly depending on your needs and availability. As we get to know each other during sessions, we will determine how we will know if things are getting better. I imagine that you have checked out who I am throughout my website, so you probably already know the following info. However, it’s probably worth saying again that I very much value talking explicitly with my clients about their experience of therapy with me, rather than assuming I know what they are feeling or experiencing, or what's best for them. This means I'll regularly ask you about what is going well in our therapy work together and if there's anything we should do differently. I am not a highly directive therapist, so our sessions will focus on what you need to get out of them each time. I provide some prompts about what we’ve been exploring or your general goals, but invite you to settle in and consider how we can take care of you in our session that day.
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When we get to a point where you’re feeling confident in what you’ve learned and are practicing, we can discuss reducing frequency (if you started weekly) or wrapping up altogether. There may be the option to reduce from bi-weekly to monthly sessions, but these are available only on a case-by-case basis, scheduled week-of, and cannot be guaranteed.
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Please feel free to email me! I usually respond within 24 hours Mondays-Fridays.
Book your session
Still Have Questions?
Contact Me
Please complete this form and I’ll be back in touch via email or text usually within 1 business day.
Call or Text
423.281.4089
emily@alignedcounseling.com
office mailing address
404 S Roan St., Johnson City, TN, 37604
Dr. Emily Fornwalt provides online therapy for academics and researchers throughout Virginia, including Richmond, Charlottesville, Blacksburg, Northern Virginia, Hampton Roads, and surrounding areas.