Counseling for Women After Divorce in virginia
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’ve always been the capable one. so, why does divorce feel different?
You’re not used to struggling. You’ve handled every hard season by planning your way through it, and the logistics of divorce were no exception: the custody schedule, the assets, the new address, all managed. What you can’t seem to manage is how you feel.
The anger flares at odd moments, at your ex, at the wasted years, at a form with his new address on it. The sadness arrives in the car, in the grocery store, in the middle of a meeting. The exhaustion doesn’t respond to sleep. And while the logistics keep getting executed on schedule, you’re not sure who’s executing them anymore.
Maybe you filed, after deciding carefully and for good reasons, and the grief showed up anyway, with guilt close behind every time relief breaks through. Maybe the ending was chosen for you. Either way, you’re going through the motions of a life that no longer feels like yours.
See the main service page for the fuller picture of how I work with women during and after divorce, including what sessions involve and the questions clients ask before starting.
a day in your life after divorce
Morning starts with a knot in your stomach before you open your eyes, and you check your phone immediately, partly habit, partly bracing for a message from your ex you’ll have to manage before coffee.
You’re short with the kids over breakfast in ways you don’t mean, your 9-year-old asks why you seem mad, you say you’re not, and you sit in the carpool line an extra minute gathering yourself before you have to be a functional adult at work.
At the office your mind keeps drifting, to last week’s conversation with your ex, to the look on your daughter’s face when she found out, to the stack of legal documents still on the counter, and someone has to say your name twice in the meeting.
It’s 2am and you’re delivering the closing argument you never got to make in a fight from years ago, and you keep delivering it even as you watch tomorrow get harder.
By evening you’re ordering takeout again because cooking feels enormous, and once the kids are asleep the house goes quiet and you think: this is my life now, these silent evenings.
Or there are no kids in this picture at all, just a house that goes quiet by 7pm and a calendar of weekends that stay empty unless you plan something yourself.
What you’ve already tried
You’ve queued every podcast about divorce and starting over, ordered the books that sit half-read on the nightstand, and told yourself this is just a season. Maybe you’ve seen a therapist who let you talk and nodded in the right places, and you left feeling heard but not helped.
None of it failed because you didn’t try hard enough. Strategies work on problems with steps, and grief has none: it’s the emotions themselves, the sadness in the middle of a meeting, the anger that flares at a scheduling text, the guilt that follows every moment of relief, and they don’t shrink until they’ve been felt and understood. That’s as true for the woman who filed as for the woman who was blindsided.
your life can change after divorce counseling
Your reactions become proportional. A mildly annoying text is mildly annoying, a small frustration with the kids stays small, and you have room to choose how you respond.
You stop dreading the calendar. The handoff, the lawyer’s email, the relatives’ questions may never be pleasant, but they stop looming; you handle them and move on.
You sleep, because the 2am closing argument finally got delivered out loud in session to someone who could hear all of it, and once you understood why it still mattered, your brain stopped bringing it back at night.
You know what you want, not what you should want or what sounds reasonable, and you trust yourself to pursue it: for your career, your kids, your future.
Enjoyment comes back. You laugh and notice you meant it, you look forward to plans instead of surviving them, and the evenings stop being time to get through.
You know who you are now: not who you were before the marriage, and not who you became inside it, but someone who’s been through something hard and come out clearer about what is important to her.
How Divorce counseling with me is different
I’m Dr. Emily Fornwalt, and I work with women across Virginia who are rebuilding after divorce. I don’t do surface-level therapy: we won’t spend weeks recounting the story of your marriage, and I won’t send you home with coping techniques that hold for five minutes. Instead, we’ll slow down enough for you to feel the emotions you’ve been postponing, with me beside you while you do it, because a feeling that’s been fully felt and understood with another person stops interrupting your sleep and your workday. From there, we’ll figure out what you want next, and not what would make everyone else comfortable.
I hold a PhD in counseling from UNC Charlotte and work exclusively online, so sessions fit into your week from anywhere in Virginia.
serving divorced women online across virginia
I offer online therapy throughout Virginia for women at any point in the divorce process: recently separated, actively divorcing, or years out and still finding solid ground.
Richmond • Virginia Beach • Norfolk • Chesapeake • Arlington • Alexandria • Newport News • Hampton • Roanoke • Lynchburg • Suffolk • Charlottesville • Fredericksburg • Harrisonburg • Fairfax • Leesburg • And throughout Virginia
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
Women’s divorce Therapist in Virginia
I’m a PhD-level therapist licensed in Virginia (LPC #0701013449). I earned my PhD from UNC Charlotte and have built my practice around working with women who are used to succeeding and feel disoriented when something important falls apart.
I’ve worked in multiple settings over the years, including community mental health and university teaching, and I now practice exclusively online. 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.
starting Divorce therapy With Emily
Investment: $225 per 45-50 minute session. Initial sessions are 90 minutes at $450.
Timeline: Many women feel less alone and more grounded within the first few sessions. Substantial changes in how you parent, manage stress, and relate to yourself typically unfold over 6-12 months.
To schedule:
Book your initial session using the link below
Complete the intake paperwork I'll send (due 24 hours before we meet)
Show up. You don't need to have it all figured out first
Schedule Your First Session: Book Online | Call/Text: 423.281.4089 | 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
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