Educated in New York City, Dr. Philip Levy holds a doctor of philosophy in psychology from New York University and a bachelor of arts in psychology and philosophy from Brooklyn College. An experienced mental health professional, he presently serves as the president and owner of the PHL HP Consulting Group, the managing director of the C2C network, and the chief strategic advisor of Mind Over Mist. Over the course of his career, Dr. Philip Levy has established himself as a strong proponent of the deinstitutionalization movement.

Throughout 19th-century America, state and local governments established a significant number of hospitals to house and care for individuals with mental disorders and other forms of chronic illness. The advent of new, groundbreaking medicines in the mid-1950s made it possible for many psychiatric patients to leave these hospitals and lead relatively productive lives on the outside. This trend eventually came to be known as deinstitutionalization.

The trend continued throughout the 20th century as institutional overcrowding and patient abuse began to present significant problems to the health care industry. President John F. Kennedy accelerated the deinstitutionalization movement when he signed into law the 1963 Community Mental Health Centers Act, a provision that established a nationwide network of community mental health facilities. Thanks to modern medications and the prevalence of outpatient psychotherapy, there are currently far fewer institutionalized psychiatric patients than ever before.