Noting that Freud lacked a theory of object relations and had insufficiently appreciated the importance of aggression at the time he wrote Delusions and Dreams, Hamilton seeks to establish the role of object loss and oral aggression in Gradiva. He points out that Norbert Hanold lost both parents in childhood, was chronically depressed, and tried to adapt in a compulsive, schizoid fashion. Archeology, which deals with relics, is symbolic of his attachment to a lost object, an attachment which prevented him from developing interest in other objects. Hamilton understands Hanold's fantasies, dreams, and delusions—which he likens to artists' creations—as attempts to master separation by way of regression and fusion with the maternal breast. Such externalization achieves narcissistic repair and restoration of the lost object. The process is completed when it is proven that Zoe-Gradiva is a real living person.