Born in the gold mining hot bed of Tarkwa, Ghana, T. P. Manus Ulzen is the oldest of 5 children. His parents were both educators. He grew up in Bolgatanga, Wa, Wenchi, Accra, Kumasi and Takoradi in Ghana until he was 12 years old. He started high school at the age of 10 at St. Augustine's College, Cape Coast and continued his education at Kabulonga School for Boys in Lusaka, Zambia after his family left Ghana following the 1966 coup which ended Nkrumah's first republic. He returned to Ghana to complete his high school education at Ghana Secondary Technical School, Takoradi.

Though greatly interested in liberal arts pursuits, he chose medicine as a career and graduated from the University of Ghana Medical School at the age of 22, becoming the youngest physician in his country at the time. After working as a general physician in Cape Coast, he left Ghana in 1980 for Canada to begin his specialist training.

He completed his postgraduate studies in Psychiatry at the University of Toronto in 1985 and has since had a successful career as an academic psychiatrist. He has been on the faculty at the University of Toronto, Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University, and is now Professor and Chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine in the College of Community Health Sciences at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama where he is also Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. He is married to Ekua Mensah, a musician and they have 3 children, Adwoa, Kweku and Kofi.