Counseling for Women After Divorce in south carolina
online therapy with Dr. Emily Fornwalt
Photo Credits: Valeris Nikitina; Unsplash
“i feel so alone.”
“i can’t do this by myself anymore.”
“i’m the one who left. so why do i feel like this?”
You’ve Lost You…
you held it together. until you couldn’t
For years you’ve been the one who manages: the career, the household, the schedules, the emotional temperature of everyone around you. You made it look easy, or at least possible, even when it wasn’t. Then the marriage ended, and the structure that organized your whole life went with it.
Maybe you’re the one who called it, after months or years of deciding, and the sadness caught you off guard because you thought choosing it would spare you the grief. Maybe you didn’t see it coming at all. Either way, you’re now trying to figure out who you are when you’re no longer someone’s wife and the future you planned for no longer exists.
You’re not someone who falls apart; you’re someone who figures it out, pushes through, gets it done. You’ve approached the divorce the same way, and you’re exhausted from pretending it’s working.
Learn more about how I work with women during and after divorce, including what sessions involve and the questions clients ask before starting.
what post-divorce life looks like right now
You wake up tired even when you’ve technically slept, and everything on the schedule, the kids, the inbox, the commute, takes more effort than it used to.
Your 12-year-old has started acting out, and you can’t tell whether it’s ordinary preteen behavior or fallout from the divorce. You try to talk and she shuts you down; you give her space and she says you don’t care. The guilt is constant either way.
You’re fine all day, and then one detail sets you off: his new address on a school form, a tone in a scheduling text. You type a reply you’ll never send, delete it, and spend another hour improving it in your head.
It’s 2am and you’re re-arguing a fight from years ago, delivering the lines you didn’t think of at the time, knowing tomorrow gets harder with every minute you stay in it.
Weekends without the kids are the hardest: you make plans you don’t keep, tell yourself you should enjoy the time, and end up on the couch with your phone, feeling worse.
Or there are no custody weekends because there are no kids, just a town full of couples, a favorite restaurant that was “ours,” and evenings you’re learning to fill on your own terms.
the divorce self-help trap
You’ve tried to fix this the way you fix everything, with research and effort and sheer determination: the books everyone recommends, the meditation apps, the co-parenting platform that was supposed to reduce conflict. Maybe a previous therapist, who nodded kindly and sent you home with breathing exercises that didn’t change anything.
The problem was never your effort. Books and apps solve problems that have steps, and the end of a marriage is a loss, which is a different category: it can’t be scheduled, delegated, or optimized, only grieved. And grieving means feeling the emotions you’ve spent years postponing so everyone else could stay steady: the sadness that arrives in the car, the anger that shows up a year late, the guilt that appears the moment you feel relief. That’s true whether the divorce happened to you or you chose it.
different divorce support
I’m Dr. Emily Fornwalt, and I work with driven, capable women across South Carolina who are trying to find solid ground after divorce. We won’t spend sessions strategizing or reviewing tips. Instead, we’ll slow down enough for you to feel what you’ve been managing around, with me beside you while you do it, because a feeling that’s been fully felt and made sense of with another person stops interrupting your sleep and your workday. From there, we’ll sort out what you want now, apart from what anyone else expects you to want.
I hold a PhD in counseling from UNC Charlotte and work entirely online, so sessions fit into your week from anywhere in South Carolina.
your life can change after divorce counseling
You parent with more patience, because you’re not depleted by lunchtime anymore. When your daughter pushes your buttons, you have enough capacity left to respond on purpose instead of snapping out of exhaustion.
Texts from your ex stop living rent-free in your head. You answer once, say what needs to be said, and the drafting-and-deleting time goes back to being yours.
You sleep through the night more often than not, because the 2am argument finally got said out loud in session and understood, and your brain stopped bringing it back.
Weekends feel like time to rest. You make plans before Friday arrives and keep most of them, and the quiet house becomes somewhere to rest instead of something to outlast.
You answer “how are you?” honestly sometimes, without drama and without pretending, and you let people help without treating it as failure.
You know what you want and trust yourself to go after it, whether that’s the job, the move, or simply a Saturday that belongs entirely to you.
serving divorced women online throughout south carolina
I offer online therapy across South Carolina for women at all stages of the divorce process: separated, divorcing, or already divorced and still figuring out what comes next.
Charleston • Columbia • Greenville • North Charleston • Mount Pleasant • Rock Hill • Spartanburg • Summerville • Hilton Head Island • Goose Creek • Myrtle Beach • Florence • Greer • Simpsonville • And throughout South Carolina
our sessions will be
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Collaborative: We will work together. Here’s at least one thing you’re not gonna be handling all on your own.
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Encouraging: Even if you can’t name them right now, I know you have strengths. 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; you’ve got no time for therapy games where someone sounds like a cliché. You got that on your last Netflix binge.
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Fun: I can pretty much guarantee some laughs. You can demand more humor if needed, because I know you could use that break.
i’m Emily.
About me
I’m a PhD-level therapist certified as a telehealth provider in South Carolina (#TLC 214 PC). My doctorate is from UNC Charlotte, and I’ve spent my career working with women who are used to excelling and feel lost when life stops going according to plan.
Before starting my online practice, I worked in community mental health and taught at the university level. My approach is grounded in attachment science, which in plain terms means the way forward after a loss like divorce starts with feeling the emotions you’ve been putting off, and my job is to make that safe and far less lonely than it sounds.
If you’d like to know more about me than fits in a short blurb, please explore the link below.
how to begin…
Investment: $225 per 45-50 minute session. Initial sessions are 90 minutes at $450.
What to expect: Early sessions often bring relief just from being truly heard. Deeper shifts in how you parent, set boundaries, and see yourself typically develop over 6-12 months.
To get started:
Schedule your initial session using the link below
Complete the intake paperwork I'll send (due 24 hours before our first meeting)
Show up—that's all you need to do
Schedule Your First Session: Book Online | Call/Text: 423.281.4098 | Email: emily@alignedcounseling.com
Faqs & Logistics…
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. There are many reasons for this, and I am happy to answer any questions you may have.
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
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