As a woman who studied Russian at Colgate, lived in four countries, and held a vibrant consulting career, Michelle Fragola Hoffman ’92 knew she wanted to try something new after being a stay-at-home mom to her two children. “I always liked [the idea] that you don’t have to be just one thing,” she says. After looking deep into herself, and seeking the advice of others, Hoffman landed on family therapy. Walk her road taken:

Colgate taught me to remain curious about everything. There are always more perspectives than you considered.

I was in grad school for 19th-century Russian literature. Russia was opening up, and all of a sudden, all these famous professors could come to the United States and teach. Nobody wanted this American… There was no job market anymore.

At a Colgate wedding, I sat next to an alumnus who was telling me about his job as a consultant, [which] sounded really cool. He hooked me up with a friend who was working at a consulting agency that needed somebody.

On typical days, I would be traveling. I’d be working at a company, helping it to become more efficient. I started out just flying somewhere and taking notes, and then I started adding more and more to the meeting, and after a while, I was running meetings and then running projects. I lived in London, in Switzerland, in Barcelona. 

I decided to move back to the States. I was almost 30, and I [felt] I was done traveling all over. I decided to go in-house, basically doing the same thing, just for one company. I was there for a couple of years, met a guy, got married, had a kid. We adopted a second child, [and I thought], ‘When else [am] I going to have time to stay home with two kids?’

I began thinking, ‘If I want to go back to work when my kids are in middle school, what do I want to do? What do I want to be?’ I started taking people out to lunch — people I’d worked with, people I’ve spoken to before, [and asked them] ‘What do you think I’m good at?’

I was good at leading meetings. I was good at communicating with people. I was good at getting everybody to gain a consensus, to see different perspectives.

I decided to take an Intro to Family Therapy class on a whim to see if it was something I liked, and I loved it.

A lot of what I do in therapy is similar to being a consultant. You identify what goals you have, you identify how you know if you’re reaching those goals, and you make sure everybody has equal input.

I focus on trauma, and although I had worked with families with trauma, I wanted to focus more specifically on teenagers. So right now, I’m working at a high school with teenagers who have experienced trauma.

I see myself as neither the end nor the beginning for [clients]. I see myself as part of a relay race of support for people. If I don’t help them quite as much as I thought I was going to, that’s OK because I’ve gotten them far enough along that maybe the next person can help them.

[During the COVID-19 pandemic, I’ve seen] more intense relationship demands from parents. A lot of parents have an idea of what they want their family to be like during this, and are putting a lot of pressure on the kids to respond a certain way, which leads to the kids feeling stressed and the parents feeling disappointed. One thing I always go back to is, everybody’s just doing their best. As long as you recognize that you’re doing your best, you have to assume your kid is doing their best. Focus on that.