Dr. Philip Appel grew up in a small New England Town in Massachusetts. He attended the University of Massachusetts in Amherst (1968-1972). In his Junior Year he was selected for a Ford Foundation Program for an interdisciplinary Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology, Education and Human Relations. He spent his senior year as an Extern learning counseling on the inpatient Alcohol treatment program of the Northampton Veterans Administration Psychiatric Hospital.
Upon graduation he worked for 2 years as a psychiatric nursing assistant on the admissions ward of the same hospital until his first wife graduated nursing school. He then attended the School of Social Work of Boston University and got his Masters of Science (1974-1976). While attending Boston University he worked as a nursing assistant on the Spinal Cord Intensive Care unit of the West Roxbury Veterans Administration Hospital.