After fieldwork on the process of urbanization in Latin America and Puerto Rico, Betsy Hegeman trained as a psychoanalyst. During her forty years at John Jay, she has concentrated on research that deals with the overlap among the disciplines of psychology, psychoanalysis, and anthropology, writing about topics such as the effect of breaking incest taboos on personality, and the role of group process in transmitting culture. She has co-written Valuing Emotions with her husband, Michael Stocker, a philosopher. She is currently researching and theorizing about culture-bound syndromes of mental illness and what they represent.