Professor Frederick W. Hickling was born in Kingston Jamaica, in 1944. He attended the Wolmer’s Boys School on a Wolmer’s Foundation Scholarship, and subsequently pursued higher education in medicine and psychiatry at the University of the West Indies, Mona. Professor Hickling received specialist training in anatomy at St. Thomas’ Hospital Medical School, University of London, and postgraduate training in psychiatry at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, University of Edinburgh.
Professor Hickling helped to establish a unique community psychiatric service and to pioneer Cultural Therapy at the Bellevue [Mental] Hospital in Jamaica in the 1970’s. In the 1980’s he established a private psychiatric research and clinical service, Psychotherapy Associates Limited, in Kingston, Jamaica, while continuing his outreach work in Jamaica and internationally. In the 1990’s Professor Hickling was instrumental in helping to shape policy for African Caribbean Mental Health in the United Kingdom.
With wide international experience in the Caribbean, North America, the UK and New Zealand, Professor Hickling was elected and performed the role as the Head of the Section of Psychiatry at University of the West Indies Mona, from 2000 to 2006 and from 2006 to 2010 he held the title of the Professor of Psychiatry, at University of the West Indies, Mona. Upon his retirement from the Department of Psychiatry in 2010, he was appointed Emeritus Professor.
In 2008, Professor Hickling was instrumental in the development of the Caribbean Institute of Mental health and Substance Abuse (CARIMENSA), a Centre in the Faculty of Medical Sciences at the University of the West Indies, Mona campus, Jamaica, where he continues to act as Executive Director. Professor Hickling has been a researcher in the field of psychiatry for over 30 years, with interests in African Caribbean mental health, schizophrenia, personality disorder, community psychiatry, psychotherapy, political psychology and cultural therapy. He has more than 100 articles and book chapters in peer reviewed journals and books and is the author and editor of five books.