Online Counseling for Moms Throughout Tennessee
Counseling for Professional Moms in Tennessee
Your Kid Asks You a Normal Question, and You Snap Without Knowing Why
You’re standing at the kitchen counter in Nashville or Knoxville or Chattanooga, chopping something, half-listening to your kid tell you about their day while mentally drafting an email you’ll send after bedtime.
Your kid asks you a completely normal question, and you snap at them, without meaning to and without knowing exactly why. They go quiet and you see their face.
The rest of the night, you’re holding two things at once, the homework and the lunches and the rest of it, and the private knowledge that you just did the thing you swore you’d never do.
You tell yourself tomorrow will be different, and then tomorrow you do it again — sometimes twice in one evening (ugh).
You’re Succeeding at Everything, Except for the Thing That Matters Most
From the outside, you’re pulling it off — the job, the kids, the house that’s tidy enough for the occasional playdate, the birthday parties that get planned and the pediatrician appointments that get booked.
Your boss relies on you, your friends think you have it together, and your partner, if you have one, is probably telling other people how impressive you are.
What nobody sees is the 11pm replay of a comment your boss made in a meeting, the 3am wake-ups, the mental triage of tomorrow’s logistics, the jaw you unclench a dozen times a day, and the version of you that snapped at your 6-year-old over a question about their day and then cried in your closet where nobody could hear.
You’re not a bad mom. But you are exhausted, and your body has been running on adrenaline for so long that it treats your kid’s normal question like something it needs to defend against.
You snap because your body is past its capacity, and although you love your child more than anything, the reality is that you have very little left to give them by about 6pm.
More about my approach to working with professional moms here.
What You’ve Already Tried
You’ve read the books and you probably own Burnout, plus at least two parenting books and maybe one about anxiety. You’ve downloaded the meditation apps, tried journaling for three days, told yourself to just be more patient, to breathe before you respond, to count to ten.
Some of my clients have done real therapy that helped them understand themselves, and they come to me because they’re ready for the next layer of work. They can tell you exactly why they snap at their kid, they can talk about their family of origin and the perfectionism and the anxiety, and they still snap at their kid every night at bedtime, and they want that to change.
Insight gets you part of the way there, and then there’s a point where understanding why stops being the thing that brings long-term change.
What shifts things is working with the part of you that’s reacting before you’ve had a chance to think, which is the part most talk-based therapy doesn’t reach.
My Approach to Therapy for Professional Moms in Tennessee
I’m Dr. Emily Fornwalt, a licensed therapist in Tennessee, and I specialize in working with high-achieving moms whose anxiety is the engine behind both their professional success and the moments they most regret at home.
I keep a small caseload on purpose, around ten clients at a time, which means I remember what you told me last week and I’m thinking about your situation between sessions. When something comes up mid-week that can’t wait until next Tuesday, you can reach out.
I’m warm and I’m honest, and you can bring me the tired version of yourself, the angry version, the version that just yelled at her kid in the Target parking lot and is convinced she’s ruining her children. I won’t flinch. Not one of the dozens of women I’ve sat with who was carrying what you’re carrying was a bad mother. Not one.
How Therapy With Me Helps Professional Moms in Tennessee
It’s a Thursday night and you’re at dinner with your family, and your kid is telling a long, winding story about something that happened at recess. You’re following it, not mentally composing tomorrow’s presentation, not calculating whether you remembered to switch the laundry, just there, eating pasta, hearing about the drama between Lila and Marcus on the monkey bars. It’s the best part of your day.
Your boss gives you critical feedback in a meeting. Your chest tightens for a second, and then it passes. Instead of spending the next three days dissecting what they meant, you ask a clarifying question and move on, so that by the time you get home, you’re present for the homework help or the college application deadline or whatever your kid needs that night, instead of half there.
On Sunday afternoon you’re on the couch, and you’re not doing anything, not catching up on work, not reorganizing the pantry, not mentally running through Monday. Your coffee is still hot because you remembered to drink it.
You sleep through the night. Not every night, but most nights.
Cities I Serve in Tennessee
I work with clients across Tennessee via secure telehealth, which means no commute and no need to arrange childcare for the drive.
My clients come to me from Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville, and Chattanooga, as well as Murfreesboro, Franklin, Brentwood, Clarksville, Johnson City, Kingsport, Bristol, Jackson, Hendersonville, Smyrna, Germantown, Collierville, Cleveland, Bartlett, Gallatin, Cookeville, La Vergne, Mount Juliet, Spring Hill, Columbia, Oak Ridge, Farragut, Maryville, and surrounding areas.
If you have reliable internet anywhere in Tennessee, we can work together.
i’m Emily.
About dr. emily fornwalt
Therapist for Professional Moms
I’m Dr. Emily Fornwalt. I’m a licensed therapist with a PhD in counseling from UNC Charlotte, and I specialize in working with women who are functioning on the outside and exhausted on the inside.
I’m trained in approaches that work with the part of you that reacts before you have time to think — the part that snaps at your kid or tightens up before a meeting — which is where the real changes happen.
I see clients exclusively by telehealth in Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia.
Schedule, Fees, & Logistics
Sessions are 45 minutes, typically once per week, and are $225 per session. Initial sessions are 90 minutes at $450.
Please note, sessions are completely private pay. I do not bill insurance or provide Superbills.
I see clients online in Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia.
Ready to Begin?
1. Schedule your first session using the link below, which will take you to my HIPAA-compliant calendar
2. Complete intake paperwork that you will receive via email
3. Show up. That is the hardest part, and you have done harder things this week.
Schedule Your First Session: Book your first session online here
Not quite ready to book? Send me a note instead.
Call or Text
423.281.4089
emily@alignedcounseling.com
Office mailing address
404 S Roan St., Johnson City, TN, 37604